  We study the effects of free space nucleon radius on nuclear matter and
neutron stars within the framework of quark mean field model. The nucleon
radius is treated self-consistently with this model, where quark confinement is
adjusted to fit different values of nucleon radius. Corrections due to
center-of-mass motion, quark-pion coupling, and one gluon exchange are included
to obtain the nucleon mass in vacuum. The meson coupling constants that
describe the behavior of many-body nucleonic system are newly-constructed by
reproducing the empirical saturation properties of nuclear matter, including
the recent determinations of symmetry energy parameters. Our results show that
the nucleon radius in free space have negligible effects on nuclear matter
equation of state and neutron star mass-radius relations, which is different
from the conclusion drawn in previous studies. We further explore that the
sensitivity of star radius on the nucleon radius found in earlier publications
is actually from the symmetry energy and its slope.
