ASYMMETRIC NUCLEAR MATTER: A VARIATIONAL APPROACH

Abstract

We discuss here a self-consistent method to calculate the properties of the cold asymmetric nuclear matter. In this model, the nuclear matter is dressed with s-wave pion pairs and the nucleon-nucleon (N-N) interaction is mediated by these pion pairs, ω and ρ mesons. The parameters of these interactions are calculated self-consistently to obtain the saturation properties like equilibrium binding energy, pressure, compressibility and symmetry energy. The computed equation of state is then used in the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkoff (TOV) equation to study the mass and radius of a neutron star in the pure neutron matter limit.