Nuclear Density Functional Theory and the Equation of State

Abstract: A nuclear density functional can be used to find the binding energy and shell structure of nuclei and the energy gap in superconducting nuclear matter. In this paper, we study the possible application of a nuclear density functional theory to nuclear astrophysics. From energy density functional theory, we can deduce the interaction between nucleons to find a rough estimate of the charge radius of the specific nuclei. Compared to the Finite-Range Thomas Fermi model, we include three-body forces, which might be important at densities several times that of nuclear matter density. We also add the momentum dependent interaction to take into account the effective mass of the nucleons. We study matter in the neutron star crust using the Wigner-Seitz cell method. By constructing the mass-radius relation of neutron stars and investigating lepton-rich nuclear matter in proto-neutron stars, we find that the density functional can be used to construct an equation of state of hot dense matter.