Coupled-cluster studies of infinite nuclear matter

TL;DR

This paper develops a coupled-cluster formalism for infinite nuclear and neutron matter, incorporating correlations to all orders, and compares results with traditional Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled-cluster approach with exact Pauli operator treatment for nuclear matter calculations, advancing beyond previous approximations.

Findings

Coupled-cluster ladder approximation yields results comparable to Brueckner-Hartree-Fock.

Inclusion of chiral effective field theory interactions improves the realism of nuclear matter models.

First application of CC methods to infinite nuclear matter with modern interactions.

Abstract

The aim of this work is to develop the relevant formalism for performing coupled-cluster (CC) calculations in nuclear matter and neutron star matter, including thereby important correlations to infinite order in the interaction and testing modern nuclear forces based on chiral effective field theory. Our formalism includes the exact treatment of the so-called Pauli operator in a partial wave expansion of the equation of state. Nuclear and neutron matter calculations are done using a coupled particle-particle and hole-hole ladder approximation. The coupled ladder equations are derived as an approximation of CC theory, leaving out particle-hole and non-linear diagrams from the CC doubles amplitude equation. This study is a first step toward CC calculations for nuclear and neutron matter. We present results for both symmetric nuclear matter and pure neutron matter employing state-of-the-art nucleon-nucleon interactions based on chiral effective field theory. We employ also the newly optimized chiral interaction [A. Ekstr\"om et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 192502 (2013)] to study infinite nuclear matter. The ladder approximation method and corresponding results are compared with conventional Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory.