Recent advances in variational and perturbative theories are surveyed which offer genuine promise that nuclear matter will soon become a viable tool for investigating nuclear interactions. The basic elements of the hypernetted chain expansion for Jastrow variational functions are briefly reviewed, and comparisons of variational and perturbative results for a series of increasingly complicated systems are presented. Prospects for investigating realistic forces are assessed and the unresolved, open problems are summarized.
Recent advances in variational and perturbative theories are surveyed which offer genuine promise that nuclear matter will soon become a viable tool for investigating nuclear interactions. The basic elements of the hypernetted chain expansion for Jastrow variational functions are briefly reviewed, and comparisons of variational and perturbative results for a series of increasingly complicated systems are presented. Prospects for investigating realistic forces are assessed and the unresolved, open problems are summarized.
The hypotheticai system of nucleons known as nuclear matter provides a very interesting field of study with relevance to both nuclear physics and astrophysics. The task of finding nucleon-nucleon potentials that explain the empirical properties of nuclear matter, as well as the two-body data, has been hampered by the lack of an adequate many-body theory for treating the complicated forces involved. Realistic nucleon-nucleon potentials have strong spin, isospin, tensor and spin-orbit components which induce correspondingly strong correlations in nuclear matter. In this thesis we present a variational theory designed to cope with these complicated correlations. To place the theory in perspective we give an overview of several different many-body theories and compare their predictions in the somewhat simpler systems of the 4He and 3He liquids, and for a simple central potential model of nuclear matter. The variational theory is then developed, starting with the choice of wave function. A generalized Jastrow product of two-body correlation functions containing central, spin, isospin, tensor, and spin-orbit operators is used. The correlation function is generated by a series of two-body Schrodinger equations with boundary conditions which require the wave function to heal at a distance d. The wave function is parameterized by d and by the magnitudes of the non-central correlations. Expectation values with variational wave functions of the Jastrow type may be studied conveniently with generalized Mayer diagrams. Diagram rules are given and a general diagrammatic cluster expansion is derived. It is an expansion in powers of commutators of the non-central operators, and in their absence reduces to the usual Mayer cluster expansion. Evaluation of diagrams in the cluster expansion is complicated by the presence of the non-commuting operators. Some simple rules and useful methods for calculating the contribution due to the central, spin, isospin, and tensor operators are given. Spin-orbit operators are neglected beyond this point, but the approach used is extendible to them. Large classes of diagrams contributing to an expectation value can be summed by means of integral equations. The development of single chain, hypernetted chain, and Fermi hypernetted chain (FHNC) equations for central correlations is reviewed. The chain summation methods are extended to sum single operator chains (SOC) for the non-central operators. Methods are also given for treating the leading commutator corrections in the expansi0n by simple vertex factors. The energy expectation value for potentials with six operators are evaluated using the FHNC/SOC functions, with an exact treatment of the commutators involved. The energy is found to have a minimum with respect to variations in all parameters. Results of calculations with model potentials based on the Reid, Bethe-Johnson, Hamada-Johnston, and Gammel-Thaler potentials are reported. A crude estimate of the effect of the neglected spin-orbit potentials on the nuclear matter binding energy and saturation density indicates that it could be significant. A correct treatment of the spin-orbit potentials is the next major step that should be taken.
This article is an account of the present position of theories of nuclear matter initiated some years ago mainly by Jastrow and Brueckner. Section 1 introduces the basic ideas. Section 2 discusses the variational approach. Section 3 develops methods involving partial summations in perturbation theory. The difficulties confronting the latter approach, and their partial resolution by ideas from superconductivity theory, are analysed in § 4. Much of the formalism is relevant also in the theory of individual nuclei (see for example the review by Eden 1959) and in fields other than nuclear physics (see for example The Many Body Problem, Les Houches, 1958). However, in the selection of material our criterion has been relevance for the ground state of nuclear matter.
Abstract The main task of microscopic many-body theory is to provide an understanding and an explanation of properties of macroscopic systems from no other information than the properties of the underlying Hamiltonian, the particle statistics, and the macroscopic geometry of the system. Variational wave functions have been a very successful technique for examining the ground state and dynamic properties of dense quantum fluids. Specifically the “optimized (Fermi)-hypernetted chain” ((F)HNC-EL) hierarchy of approximations reproduces, for simple interactions like electrons and quantum fluids, the most basic features of a self-bound many-body system, namely binding, saturation, and spinodal decomposition. The relationships between Green’s functions based perturbation theory and variational wave functions have been clarified in much detail in the past. In the language of Feynman diagrams, a self-consistent summation of ring- and ladder-diagrams is the minimum requirement for a satisfactory microscopic description of these basic features. Realistic nucleon–nucleon interactions pose further problems: The most difficult aspect of the nuclear many-body problem is caused by the form of the microscopic nucleon–nucleon interaction which depends at least on the spin, isospin, the relative orientation and angular momentum of the interacting particles. Simple variational methods as used for electrons and quantum fluids are inadequate. Correlation functions that have the same structure as the interactions lead to so-called “commutator diagrams” that have, so far, been mostly neglected. We have shown in the past that these corrections can be very important if the two-body interactions are very different in different spin- or isospin channels. To deal with the problem of realistic nuclear interactions we have combined techniques of the Jastrow–Feenberg variational method and the local parquet-diagram theory. In the language of diagrammatic perturbation theory, “commutator diagrams” can be identified with non-parquet diagrams. We examine the physical processes described by these terms and include the relevant diagrams in a way that is suggested by the Jastrow–Feenberg approach. We show that the corrections from non-parquet contributions are, at short distances, larger than all other many-body effects. We examine here neutron matter as a prototype of systems with state-dependent interactions. Calculations are carried out for neutrons interacting via the so-called v8 v 8 version of four popular interactions. We determine the structure and effective interactions and apply the method to the calculation of the energetics, structure and dynamic properties such as the single-particle self-energy and the dynamic response functions as well as BCS pairing in both singlet and triplet states. We find that many-body correlations lead to a strong reduction of the spin-orbit interaction, and, therefore, to a suppression of the 3P2 3 P 2 and 3P2 3 P 2 - 3F2 3 F 2 gaps. We also find pairing in 3P0 3 P 0 states; the strength of the pairing gap depends sensitively on the potential model employed.
A series of lectures on nuclear matter is presented. The work done at Utrecht in the area of the general theory of systems of N Fermi particles, application of the theory to nuclear matter, and a critical survey of the works of Brueckner are discussed. An introduction and history, the Hamiltonian, a general study of the resolvent by the method of perturbations, matrix element of the resolvent R/sub z/ for the ground state, study of the ground state, wave function of the ground state, excited states, singular forces, case of low densities, the Brueckner theory, numerical results for E/sub 0/, and unresolved problems are considered. (J.S.R.)
There are a number of many-body systems which exhibit quantum effects on a macroscopic scale. These include liquid and crystal states of both He-3 and He-4, the electron gas, and neutron matter which probably constitutes the interior of pulsors. In addition, "nuclear matter" - a hypothetical extensive system of nucleons has been studied for the insight one may gain into the nature of finite nuclei. The theoretical studies of these systems have by now a long history, but are by no means concluded. In the last few years, significant advances have been made. This has come in part from the maturity of and gradual unification of many-body theory, in part from the development and application of powerful new expansion procedures, especially varieties of hypernetted-chain equations ( 1 ) and finally to the growing power of computer simulation methods for quantum systems. This article is intended as a review of some recent
The difficulties which arise in the conventional development of the Jastrow method for fermions, from the failure to impose proper wave-function antisymmetry, are exhibited by an extension of the diagrammatic analysis of Pandharipande and Bethe. These problems are readily solved by the use of second quantization and a corresponding modification of the usual cluster expansion. A numerical example for a strong repulsive interaction shows that inaccurate treatment of the antisymmetrization can lead to very large errors in low-order estimates of the energy.NUCLEAR STRUCTURE variational calculations, nuclear matter, Jastrow method, cluster expansion, antisymmetrization.