Abstract :
We investigate the correlation between nuclear neutron radii and the radius of neutron stars. We use a well-established hadronic SU(3) model based on chiral symmetry that naturally includes nonlinear vector meson and scalar meson–vector meson couplings. The relative strengths of the couplings modify the nuclear isospin-dependent interactions. We study the dependence of nuclear and neutron star radii on the coupling strengths. The relevance of the results for parity-violating electron–nucleus scattering is discussed.