Density-dependent nucleon-nucleon interaction from three-nucleon forces

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to incorporate three-nucleon forces into two-nucleon interactions by creating a density-dependent potential, improving nuclear matter property predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a scheme to derive a density-dependent two-nucleon potential from three-nucleon forces using correlated basis functions and modern potential models.

Findings

Effective interaction agrees with three-body potential results

Method improves nuclear matter property predictions

Applicable in nuclear matter calculations

Abstract

Microscopic calculations based on realistic nuclear hamiltonians, while yielding accurate results for the energies of the ground and low-lying excited states of nuclei with $A \leq 12$, fail to reproduce the empirical equilibrium properties of nuclear matter, that are known to be significantly affected by three-nucleon forces. We discuss a scheme suitable to construct a density-dependent two-nucleon potential, in which the effects of $n$-particle interactions can be included by integrating out the degrees of freedom of $(n-2)$-nucleons. Our approach, based on the formalism of correlated basis function and state-of-the-art models of the two- and three-nucleon potentials, leads to an effective interactionthat can be easily employed in nuclear matter calculations, yielding results in good agreement with those obtained from the underlying three-body potential.