(dr) University of Michigan
Relationship between the maximum mass of a neutral star and its state equation reduces computational calculations by a factor of seven.
As neutron starsone of the most dense objects in the universe has a composition which is still a unknown in the world of science.
A team of scientists from the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of Coimbra (FTUC) obtained a relationship between the maximum mass of a neutrons star and its state equation.
For this, it explored the potential of the symbolic regression method, a tool in the context of machine learning, which provides algebraic relationships between different properties.
This relationship in the scientific journal Physics Letters B, reduces computational calculations by a factor of sevenin one of the essential steps of looking for models compatible with observations.
The calculation uses the Bayes Inferencewhich can be very time consuming – it is necessary to solve the differential equations that determine the mass and radius of the star to several million models.
«With the current experimental and observational data available and the data that will be collected in the coming decades, it is expected that the composition of these objects is finally unraveled », Indicates the investigator Constança Providence.
“Extract from astronomical observations the properties of matter that interacts by strong force, such as nuclear matter, high densities, is, however, another challenge,” he adds in a statement sent to ZAP.
The uses of statistical methods They are essential to the success of this problem.
However, according to experts, determining the way in which matter subject to extremely high densities and pressures behave within these objects – that is, what is its equation of state, starting from the knowledge of the mass and radius of neutral stars – it is a one complicated problem which requires many hours of calculation, for the amount of models that have to be tested.
“In the near future, we hope that the state equation of dense matter can be decoded directly from the precise knowledge of the observables of neutron stars, using these advanced computational techniques, which will allow us to unravel the properties of Bariónic matter to high densities. Thus, it will be possible to know what densities the quarks are no longer confined to the nucleons and whether the phase transition to the suspicious matter is a first -order transition, ”the researchers are involved.
