Constraining Hamiltonians from chiral effective field theory with neutron-star data

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Autori principali: Armstrong, Cassandra L., Reed, Brendan T., Plohr, Tate, Rose, Henrik, De, Soumi, Somasundaram, Rahul, Tews, Ingo
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Armstrong, Cassandra L.
Reed, Brendan T.
Plohr, Tate
Rose, Henrik
De, Soumi
Somasundaram, Rahul
Tews, Ingo
author_facet Armstrong, Cassandra L.
Reed, Brendan T.
Plohr, Tate
Rose, Henrik
De, Soumi
Somasundaram, Rahul
Tews, Ingo
contents Multi-messenger observations of neutron stars (NSs) and their mergers have placed strong constraints on the dense-matter equation of state (EOS). The EOS, in turn, depends on microscopic nuclear interactions that are described by nuclear Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians are commonly derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). Ideally, multi-messenger observations of NSs could be used to directly inform our understanding of EFT interactions, but such a direct inference necessitates millions of model evaluations. This is computationally prohibitive because each evaluation requires us to calculate the EOS from a Hamiltonian by solving the quantum many-body problem with methods such as auxiliary-field diffusion Monte Carlo (AFDMC), which provides very accurate and precise solutions but at a significant computational cost. Additionally, we need to solve the stellar structure equations for each EOS which further slows down each model evaluation by a few seconds. In this work, we combine emulators for AFDMC calculations of neutron matter, built using parametric matrix models, and for the stellar structure equations, built using multilayer perceptron neural networks, with the \texttt{PyCBC} data-analysis framework to enable a direct inference of coupling constants in an EFT Hamiltonian using multi-messenger observations of NSs. We find that astrophysical data can provide informative constraints on two-nucleon couplings despite the high densities probed in NS interiors.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_05999
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Constraining Hamiltonians from chiral effective field theory with neutron-star data
Armstrong, Cassandra L.
Reed, Brendan T.
Plohr, Tate
Rose, Henrik
De, Soumi
Somasundaram, Rahul
Tews, Ingo
Nuclear Theory
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Multi-messenger observations of neutron stars (NSs) and their mergers have placed strong constraints on the dense-matter equation of state (EOS). The EOS, in turn, depends on microscopic nuclear interactions that are described by nuclear Hamiltonians. These Hamiltonians are commonly derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). Ideally, multi-messenger observations of NSs could be used to directly inform our understanding of EFT interactions, but such a direct inference necessitates millions of model evaluations. This is computationally prohibitive because each evaluation requires us to calculate the EOS from a Hamiltonian by solving the quantum many-body problem with methods such as auxiliary-field diffusion Monte Carlo (AFDMC), which provides very accurate and precise solutions but at a significant computational cost. Additionally, we need to solve the stellar structure equations for each EOS which further slows down each model evaluation by a few seconds. In this work, we combine emulators for AFDMC calculations of neutron matter, built using parametric matrix models, and for the stellar structure equations, built using multilayer perceptron neural networks, with the \texttt{PyCBC} data-analysis framework to enable a direct inference of coupling constants in an EFT Hamiltonian using multi-messenger observations of NSs. We find that astrophysical data can provide informative constraints on two-nucleon couplings despite the high densities probed in NS interiors.
title Constraining Hamiltonians from chiral effective field theory with neutron-star data
topic Nuclear Theory
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05999