Quarks and Compact Stars (QCS)
Oct. 20-22, 2014, KIAA at Peking University, Beijing - P. R. China

Relativistic equation of state at subnuclear densities in the Thomas-Fermi approximation

Zhaowen Zhang

Nankai University

Abstract: The equation of state (EOS) of hot and dense matter is an essential ingredient in understanding many astrophysical phenomena, e.g., supernova explosions and neutron star formations. The EOS for the core-collapse supernova simulations must cover wide ranges of temperature, proton fraction, and baryon density. Therefore, it is very difficult to build a complete EOS covering the wide range of thermodynamic conditions. We study the non-uniform nuclear matter using the self-consistent Thomas--Fermi approximation with a relativistic mean-field model. The non-uniform matter is assumed to be composed of a lattice of heavy nuclei surrounded by dripped nucleons. At each temperature $T$, proton fraction $Y_p$, and baryon mass density $\rho_B$, we determine the thermodynamically favored state by minimizing the free energy with respect to the radius of the Wigner-Seitz cell, while the nucleon distribution in the cell can be determined self-consistently in the Thomas-Fermi approximation. A detailed comparison is made between the present results and previous calculations in the Thomas-Fermi approximation with a parameterized nucleon distribution that has been adopted in the widely used Shen EOS.