Hard-Core Potential and the Boundary-Condition Model for Nuclear Matter

Abstract

The usefulness of the boundary-condition model (BCM) for nuclear-matter calculations depends on the uniqueness of its pseudopotential. This uniqueness is examined in the present paper. A method is proposed for comparing different potentials. Explicit calculations of the average potential energy per particle and the energy gap for nuclear matter are carried out when a hard-core pseudopotential is introduced within the nuclear force range in addition to the pseudopotential of the original BCM. The influence of the hard core with various sizes on the results is discussed. It is found that the results are not sensitive to the hard core as long as the core radius is small, showing that the BCM pseudopotential is effectively quite unique. The fact that our results are affected greatly for larger core radius is linked to the importance of the effect of many-body-correlation.