Thermodynamic properties of nuclear matter with three-body forces

TL;DR

This paper investigates the thermodynamic properties of symmetric nuclear matter using self-consistent Green's functions, highlighting the impact of three-body forces on pressure, entropy, and the critical temperature of the liquid-gas phase transition.

Contribution

It introduces a direct diagrammatic calculation of thermodynamic quantities including three-body forces, providing new insights into their effects on nuclear matter properties.

Findings

Pressure is sensitive to three-body forces.

Entropy remains unaffected by three-body forces.

Critical temperature decreases to about 12 MeV with three-body forces.

Abstract

We calculate thermodynamic quantities in symmetric nuclear matter within the self-consistent Green's functions method including three-body forces. The thermodynamic potential is computed directly from a diagrammatic expansion, implemented with the CD-Bonn and Nijmegen nucleon-nucleon potentials and the Urbana three-body forces. We present results for entropy and pressure up to temperatures of 20 MeV and densities of 0.32 fm^-3. While the pressure is sensitive to the inclusion of three-body forces, the entropy is not. The unstable spinodal region is identified and the critical temperature associated to the liquid-gas phase transition is determined. When three-body forces are added we find a strong reduction of the critical temperature, obtaining T_c ~ 12 MeV.