Finite size effects in neutron star and nuclear matter simulations

To model neutron star matter we add a screened Coulomb interaction between protons, and perform simulations in the three cell geometries. Our simulations indeed produce the well known nuclear pasta, with (in most cases) several structures per cell. However, we find that for systems not too large results are affected by finite size in different ways depending on the geometry of the cell. In particular, at the same certain physical conditions and system size, the hexagonal prism yields a single structure per cell while the cubic and truncated octahedron show consistent results, with more than one structure per cell. For systems of the size studied in this work these effects are still noticeable, but we find evidence to support that the dependence of the results on the cell geometry becomes smaller as the system size is increased. When the Coulomb interaction is present, the competition between opposing interactions of different range results in a proper, physically meaningful length scale that is independent of the system size and periodic cell of choice. Only under these conditions “finite size effects” will vanish for large enough systems (i.e. cells much larger than this characteristic length). Larger simulations are in order, but our computational capabilities forbid it for the time being.