Effect of short-range repulsion in nuclear matter

Abstract

The binding energy in nuclear matter has been calculated for two S-wave potentials (one with a hard core and the other with a Yukawa repulsive core) by the reference-spectrum method of the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone theory of nuclear matter. Pauli and spectral correction terms are included, and single-particle potentials are calculated self-consistently up to as high as 5 to 6 fm −1. The improved treatment of off-energy-shell effects causes a displacement of the saturation curve (i.e., total energy versus density) in the direction of decreased equilibrium density and decreased binding energy per particle. The use of a finite repulsive core increases the equilibrium binding energy per particle by 4 to 7 MeV and also significantly increases the equilibrium density. This indicates that phenomenological nucleon-nucleon potentials with finite repulsive cores should yield more satisfactory results for nuclear matter than the hard-core potentials now available.