The high density equation of state: Constraints from accelerators and astrophysics

Abstract

The nuclear equation of state (EoS) at high densities and/or extreme isospin is one of the longstanding problems of nuclear physics. In the last years substantial progress has been made to constrain the EoS both, from the astrophysical side and from accelerator based experiments. Heavy ion experiments support a soft EoS at moderate densities while the possible existence of high mass neutron star observations favors a stiff EoS. Ab initio calculations for the nuclear many-body problem make predictions for the density and isospin dependence of the EoS far away from the saturation point. Both, the constraints from astrophysics and accelerator based experiments are shown to be in agreement with the predictions from many-body theory.