Physics Letters B 748 (2015) 369–375
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Physics Letters B
www.elsevier.com/locate/physletb
Solution of the hyperon puzzle within a relativistic mean-field model
K.A. Maslov
a
, E.E. Kolomeitsev
b
, D.N. Voskresensky
a
a
National Research Nuclear University (MEPhI), 115409 Moscow, Russia
b
Matej Bel University, SK-97401 Banska Bystrica, Slovakia
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received
17 April 2015
Received
in revised form 13 July 2015
Accepted
15 July 2015
Available
online 17 July 2015
Editor:
W. Haxton
The equation of state of cold baryonic matter is studied within a relativistic mean-field model with
hadron masses and coupling constants depending on the scalar field. All hadron masses undergo a
universal scaling, whereas the couplings are scaled differently. The appearance of hyperons in dense
neutron star interiors is accounted for, however the equation of state remains sufficiently stiff if the
reduction of the φ meson mass is included. Our equation of state matches well the constraints known
from analyses of the astrophysical data and particle production in heavy-ion collisions.
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by SCOAP
3
.
1. Introduction
A nuclear equation of state (EoS) is one of the key ingredients
in the description of neutron star (NS) properties [1], supernova
explosions [2] and heavy-ion collisions [3,4]. A comparison of var-
ious
EoSs in how well they satisfy various empirical constraints
was undertaken in Ref. [5] for the EoSs obtained within relativistic
mean-field models (RMF) and some more microscopic calculations
and in Ref. [6] for the Skyrme models. It turns out difficult to rec-
oncile
the constraint on the maximum NS mass, which must be
larger than 1.97 M
after the recent measurements reported in [7,
8],
and the upper constraints on the stiffness of the EoS extracted
from the analyses of heavy-ion collisions (HICs) [3,4]. Another rel-
evant
constraint on the EoS of the NS matter is imposed by the
direct Urca (DU) processes, like n → p +e +
¯
ν, which occur as soon
as the nucleon density exceeds some critical value n
n
DU
. The oc-
currence
of these very efficient processes, even with account for
the nucleon pairing, is hardly compatible with NS cooling data,
if the value of the NS mass, at which the central density be-
comes
larger than n
n
DU
, is M
n
DU
< 1.5 M
(the so-called “strong”
DU constraint) [9,5]. There should be M
n
DU
< 1.35 M
(the “weak”
DU constraint) [10,5], since 1.35 M
is the mean value of the NS
mass distribution, as it follows from the analysis of the observa-
tional
data on NSs in binary systems. The DU problem appears
in the EoSs with linear dependence of the symmetry energy ex-
cept,
maybe, most stiff ones. All the standard RMF EoSs and the
microscopic Dirac–Brueckner–Hartree–Fock (DBHF) EoS suffer of
this linear dependence. On the contrary, variational calculations
E-mail address: E.Kolomeitsev@gsi.de (E.E. Kolomeitsev).
of the Urbana–Argonne group with A18 + δv + UIX
∗
forces [11],
as well as the RMF models with density dependent hadron cou-
pling
constants [12], generate a weaker growth of the symmetry
energy with the density, and the problem with the DU reactions is
avoided. The later models are also able to describe NSs, as heavy
as those in Refs. [7,8].
The
problems worsen if strangeness is taken into account, be-
cause
the population of new Fermi seas of hyperons leads to a
softening of the EoS and reduction of the maximum NS mass. By
employing a recently constructed hyperon–nucleon potential, the
maximum masses of NSs with hyperons are computed to be well
below 1.4 M
[13]. Also, within RMF models one is able to explain
observed massive NSs only, if one artificially prevents the appear-
ance
of hyperons, cf. [13,14] and the references therein. This is
called in the literature, the “hyperon puzzle”. So, the difference
between NS masses with and without hyperons proves to be so
large for reasonable hyperon fractions in the standard RMF ap-
proach that
in order to solve the puzzle one has to start with
very stiff purely nuclear EoS, that hardly agrees with the results
of the microscopically-based variational EoS [11] and the EoS cal-
culated
with the help of the auxiliary field diffusion Monte Carlo
method [15]. Such an EoS would also be incompatible with the
restrictions on the EoS stiffness extracted from the analysis of nu-
cleon
and kaon flows in heavy-ion collisions [3,4]. All suggested
explanations require additional assumptions, see discussion in [16].
For example, the inclusion of an interaction with a φ-meson mean
field, and the usage of smaller ratios of hyperon coupling constants
to nucleon ones following the SU(3) symmetry relations [17], as
well as other modifications performed within the standard RMF
approach, all help to increase the NS mass.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2015.07.032
0370-2693/
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Funded by
SCOAP
3
.