Three-body properties in nuclear matter at thermal equilibrium

Abstract

We derive three-body equations valid at finite densities and temperatures. These are based on the cluster mean field approach consistently including proper self energy corrections and the Pauli blocking. As an application we investigate the binding energies of triton and determine the Mott densities and momenta relevant for a many particle description of nuclear matter in a generalized Beth-Uhlenbeck approach. The method, however is not restricted to nuclear physics problems but may also be relevant, e.g., to treat three-particle correlations in weekly doped semiconducters or strongly coupled dense plasmas.