Conformal prediction for uncertainties in the neutron star equation of state

Abstract

We study uncertainties in the equation of state of neutron stars using conformal prediction as a distribution-free and model-agnostic method that provides coverage guarantees. In particular, we apply the Conformalized Quantile Regression (CQR) method to posterior samples calculated from Bayesian inference, creating reliable uncertainty bands without assuming a specific form of the underlying distribution. We first construct CQR bands as a postprocessing step to the posterior samples of neutron star mas-radius relations provided by the NMMA collaboration and to Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of pure neutron matter. In all cases, empirical coverage studies confirm the robustness of the method.