Tension between implications from PREX-2 data and gravitational tidal response on dense matter equation of state

Abstract

Recently an improved value of neutron skin thickness of 208Pb was reported in Lead Radius EXperiment-2 (PREX-2) to be Rskin = Rn Rp = (0.283 0.071) fm which corresponds to high estimations of nuclear symmetry energy (Esym) and its slope (Lsym). The updated values of Esym and Lsym commensurating to the neutron star observable estimations lie exterior to the astrophysical observed range. The higher values of Lsym at n0 deduced from recent PREX-2 data correlates to matter being easily deformable (yielding higher radius values) around intermediate matter densities leading to higher values of Λ̃ creating a tension between the terrestrial and astrophysical observations. In this study, we exploit this tension to constrain the Δ-scalar meson coupling parameter space.