Roles of crust and core in the tidal deformability of neutron stars

Abstract

With the recent measurement of GW170817 providing constraints on the tidal deformability of a neutron star, it is very important to understand what features of the equation of state have the biggest effect on it. We therefore study the contribution of the crust to the tidal deformability and the moment of inertia of a neutron star for a variety of well-known equations of state. It is found that the contributions to these quantities from the low density crust are typically quite small and as a result the determination of the tidal deformability provides an important constraint on the equation of state of dense matter.