Nuclear Saturation with Low Momentum Interactions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that incorporating relativistic effects into low-momentum nucleon-nucleon interactions successfully reproduces nuclear matter saturation, improving upon non-relativistic models and showing insensitivity to the specific $NN$ interaction used.

Contribution

The study shows that relativistic effects resolve saturation issues in low-momentum interactions, enabling accurate nuclear matter calculations at the Hartree-Fock level.

Findings

Relativistic effects enable saturation in Hartree-Fock calculations.

Brueckner-Hartree-Fock further improves saturation properties.

Results are insensitive to the choice of realistic $NN$ interactions.

Abstract

Relativistic effects are investigated in nuclear matter calculations employing renormalized low-momentum nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interactions. It is demonstrated that the relativistic effects cure a problem of non-relativistic low-momentum interactions, which fail to reproduce saturation of nuclear matter. Including relativistic effects, one already obtains saturation in a Hartree-Fock calculation. Brueckner-Hartree-Fock calculations lead to a further improvement of the saturation properties. The results are rather insensitive to the realistic $NN$ interaction on which they are based.