Pairing effects on neutron matter equation of state and symmetry energy at subsaturation densities

Abstract

Within the framework of BCS theory and Skyrme-Hartree-Fock model, we employ various microscopic pairing gaps and effective pairing interactions to study pairing effects on the equation of state (EOS) of neutron matter and the symmetry energy at subsaturation densities. We find pairing effects may have considerable contributions to the EOS of neutron matter at very low densities ($\lesssim 0.02~\rm{fm}^{-3}$), while only have a small impact on the symmetry energy at subsatruation densities. In addition, the reliability of the parabolic approximation for the isospin asymmetry dependence of nuclear matter EOS with pairing correlations included is also discussed.