A Lee-Yang--inspired functional with a density--dependent neutron-neutron scattering length

Abstract

Inspired by the low--density Lee-Yang expansion for the energy of a dilute Fermi gas of density $\rho$ and momentum $k_F$, we introduce here a Skyrme--type functional that contains only $s$-wave terms and provides, at the mean--field level, (i) a satisfactory equation of state for neutron matter from extremely low densities up to densities close to the equilibrium point, and (ii) a good--quality equation of state for symmetric matter at density scales around the saturation point. This is achieved by using a density--dependent neutron-neutron scattering length $a(\rho$) which satisfies the low--density limit (for Fermi momenta going to zero) and has a density dependence tuned in such a way that the low--density constraint $|a(\rho) k_F| \le 1$ is satisfied at all density scales.