The neutron skin of ${}^{208}$Pb and the density dependence of the symmetry energy

Abstract

We explore neutron skin predictions for ${}^{208}$Pb in relation to the symmetry pressure in various microscopic models based on realistic nucleon-nucleon potentials and either the Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach or the conventional Brueckner-Hartree-Fock framework implemented with three-body forces. We also discuss the correlation between the neutron skin and the radius of a fixed-mass neutron star.

Comments: 12 pages, 12 figures. Submitted to Physical Review C