Role of the Meson in Softening the Symmetry Energy within the DDRHF Model
Qirui Li🇨🇳 · Jinniu Hu🇨🇳 · Ying Zhang🇨🇳 · Hong Shen🇨🇳
We investigate the effects of the isovector-scalar meson on the density dependence of the symmetry energy within the density-dependent relativistic Hartree--Fock (DDRHF) framework. As a baseline, we generate accepted DDRHF parametrizations including the , , , and mesons by imposing empirical constraints on the saturation properties of nuclear matter. The resulting symmetry-energy slope parameters are confined to relatively large values, --. Two representative parametrizations, denoted RHF-NK1 and RHF-NK2, are randomly selected from this ensemble. Starting from these two parametrizations, we introduce the meson and readjust the meson--nucleon couplings under the same saturation-property constraints. The numerical optimization shows that small values of are obtained most efficiently when the coupling is taken to be constant. In this case, is reduced from approximately to , while the binding energy per nucleon, saturation density, symmetry energy, and incompressibility coefficient remain nearly unchanged. A channel-by-channel decomposition shows that the softening is not caused by the direct -meson contribution alone, but by a redistribution among the , , and mesons together with the isoscalar Fock contributions. The resulting neutron-star mass--radius relations shift toward smaller radii, indicating that the meson provides an efficient additional degree of freedom for controlling the isovector properties of DDRHF models.