Naturalness of nonlinear σ, ω self-couplings in relativistic mean-field models for neutron stars

We investigate dense hadronic matter in a relativistic mean-field approach. For a generalized baryon-meson Lagrangian effective field theory, we confront expansions from naive dimensional analysis for the nonlinear self-couplings of the sigma,omega fields with estimates from microscopic q (q) over bar pair creation models from Quantum Chromodynamics. Upon adjusting the model parameters to ordinary nuclear matter, we discuss implications of the approach to dense hadronic matter and in particular to neutron stars.