GSI-Colloquium:"Experimental, Observational and Theoretical Constraints on the Properties of Neutron Stars"

General relativity and measured neutron star masses provide important clues about neutron star properties and also provide a direct link between neutron star radii and the symmetry energy of the nuclear interaction. The symmetry energy is, in the meantime, strongly constrained by many nuclear experimental quantities, such as binding energies, neutron and proton matter distributions, and vibrational modes including dipole resonances. In addition, theoretical calculations of the properties of pure neutron matter, for which there have been significant recent advances, provide parallel information. These experimental and theoretical results are consistent with each other, and therefore constrain properties of neutron stars, especially radii. Although measurements of neutron star radii are subject to a number of systematic uncertainties at present, results are available from a number of different observations and are tantalizingly similar to experimental and theoretical predictions. This concordance should enhance the prospects for the useful interpretation of gravitational wave observations of neutron star-neutron star and black hole-neutron star mergers.