Extracting the Central Sound Speed of Neutron Stars through Intrinsic Stellar Structure Scaling with Reduced Equation-of-State Model Dependence

arXiv:2610.21806 · astro-ph.HE, gr-qc, nucl-th · Submitted 2026-10-15 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.HE, gr-qc, nucl-th

Submitted: 2026-10-15

Updated: 2026-10-15

Comments: 28 pages, 13 figures

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Inferring neutron star (NS) core properties remains sensitive to the assumed equation of state (EOS).

Abstract

Inferring neutron star (NS) core properties remains sensitive to the assumed equation of state (EOS). Using a nonlinear Walecka model with generalized ω-meson self-interactions, we construct six EOS families, each containing 10 cubed samples subject to identical nuclear and astrophysical constraints. Despite satisfying these constraints, the families predict markedly different high-density behavior and core properties; higher-order ω interactions can also generate interior sound-speed peaks within purely nucleonic matter. To reduce this model dependence, we use the intrinsic and perturbative analysis of the dimensionless Tolman--Oppenheimer--Volkoff equations (IPAD-TOV) to derive an EOS-independent estimator Θ(,Ψ) of the central squared sound speed s c squared, where =P c/epsilon c is the central EOS-parameter and Ψ characterizes the stellar-mass response to central energy density. For canonical 1.4,M NSs, Θ correlates linearly with s c squared across the families (R 2 about0.94 - 0.99). The family-dependent relations converge toward a common optimum: minimizing their dispersion yields s c 2 about 0.523 plus or minus0.044 and about 0.173+0.020-0.018 for all six families, or s c 2 about 0.496 plus or minus0.092 and about 0.167+0.030-0.029 when the family without ω self-interaction is excluded. The corresponding radii are 11.73+1.08-0.92 and 11.92+1.76-1.28, km, respectively, with 95% confidence intervals. A unified scaling fitted to all EOS samples supports both extractions. These results show how common stellar-structure relations can constrain NS core properties with reduced EOS-model dependence, even when existing observations cannot distinguish among the underlying EOS descriptions.

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