Effects of symmetry energy on the radius and tidal deformability of neutron stars in the relativistic mean-field model

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The radii and tidal deformabilities of neutron stars are investigated in the framework of the relativistic mean-field (RMF) model with different density-dependent behaviors of symmetry energy. To study the effects of symmetry energy on the properties of neutron stars, $\omega$ meson and $\rho$ meson coupling terms are included in a popular RMF Lagrangian, i.e., the TM1 parameter set, which is adopted for the widely used supernova equation of state (EoS) table. The coupling constants relevant to the vector–isovector meson, $\rho$, are refitted by a fixed symmetry energy at subsaturation density and its slope at saturation density, while other coupling constants remain the same as the original ones in TM1 so as to update the supernova EoS table. The radius and mass of maximum neutron stars are not so sensitive to the symmetry energy in these family TM1 parameterizations. However, the radii in the intermediate-mass region are strongly correlated with the slope of symmetry energy. Furthermore, the dimensionless tidal deformabilities of neutron stars are also calculated within the associated Love number, which is related to the quadrupole deformation of the star in a static external tidal field and can be extracted from the observation of a gravitational wave generated by a binary star merger. We find that its value at $1.4 \mathrm{M}_\odot$ has a linear correlation to the slope of symmetry energy, unlike that previously studied. With the latest constraints of tidal deformabilities from the GW170817 event, the slope of symmetry energy at nuclear saturation density should be smaller than $60$ MeV in the family TM1 parameterizations. This fact supports the usage of a lower symmetry energy slope for the updated supernova EoS, which is applicable to simulations of neutron star mergers. Furthermore, an analogous analysis is also done within the family IUFSU parameter sets. It is found that the correlations between the symmetry energy slope with the radius and tidal deformability at $1.4 \mathrm{M}_\odot$ have very similar linear relations in these RMF models.</jats:p>