The nuclear mean-field potentials obtained in the Hartree-Fock method with different choices of the in-medium nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction have been used to study the equation of state (EOS) of the neutron star (NS) matter. The EOS of the uniform NS core has been calculated for the npeµ composition in the β-equilibrium at zero temperature, using version Sly4 of the Skyrme interaction as well as two density-dependent versions of the finite-range M3Y interaction (CDM3Yn and M3Y-Pn), and versions D1S and D1N of the Gogny interaction. Although the considered effective NN interactions were proven to be quite realistic in numerous nuclear structure and/or reaction studies, they give quite different behaviors of the symmetry energy of nuclear matter at supranuclear densities that lead to the soft and stiff scenarios discussed recently in the literature. Different EOS's of the NS core and the EOS of the NS crust given by the compressible liquid drop model have been used as input of the Tolman-Oppenheimer-Volkov equations to study how the nuclear symmetry energy affects the model prediction of different NS properties, like the cooling process as well as the gravitational mass, radius, and moment of inertia.

The nucleon mean-field potential has been thoroughly investigated in an extended Hartree-Fock (HF) calculation of nuclear matter (NM) using the CDM3Y3 and CDM3Y6 density dependent versions of the M3Y interaction. The single-particle (s/p) energies of nucleons in NM are determined according to the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem, which gives rise naturally to a rearrangement term (RT) of the s/p potential at the Fermi momentum. Using the RT obtained exactly at the different NM densities and neutron-proton asymmetries, a consistent method is suggested to take into account effectively the momentum dependence of the RT of the s/p potential within the standard HF scheme. To obtain a realistic momentum dependence of the nucleon optical potential (OP), the high-momentum part of the s/p potential was accurately readjusted to reproduce the observed energy dependence of the nucleon OP over a wide range of energies. The impact of the RT and momentum dependence of the s/p potential on the density dependence of the nuclear symmetry energy and nucleon effective mass has been studied in details. The high-momentum tail of the s/p potential was found to have a sizable effect on the slope of the symmetry energy and the neutron-proton effective mass splitting at supranuclear densities of the NM. Based on a local density approximation, the folding model of the nucleon OP of finite nuclei has been extended to take into account consistently the RT and momentum dependence of the nucleon OP in the same mean-field manner, and successfully applied to study the elastic neutron scattering on the lead target at the energies around the Fermi energy.

Realistic density dependent CDM3Yn versions of the M3Y interaction have been used in an extended Hartree-Fock (HF) calculation of nuclear matter (NM), with the nucleon single-particle potential determined from the total NM energy based on the Hugenholtz-van Hove theorem that gives rise naturally to a rearrangement term (RT). Using the RT of the single-nucleon potential obtained exactly at different NM densities, the density-and energy dependence of the CDM3Yn interactions was modified to account properly for both the RT and observed energy dependence of the nucleon optical potential. Based on a local density approximation, the double-folding model of the nucleus-nucleus optical potential has been extended to take into account consistently the rearrangement effect and energy dependence of the nuclear mean-field potential, using the modified CDM3Yn interactions. The extended double-folding model was applied to study the elastic 12 C+ 12 C and 16 O+ 12 C scattering at the refractive energies, where the Airy structure of the nuclear rainbow has been well established. The RT was found to affect significantly the real nucleus-nucleus optical potential at small internuclear distances, giving the potential strength close to that implied by the realistic optical model description of the Airy oscillation.

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