The formalism based on correlated basis functions and the cluster-expansion technique has been recently employed to derive an effective interaction from a realistic nuclear Hamiltonian. To gauge the reliability of this scheme, we perform a systematic comparison between the results of its application to the Fermi hard-sphere system and the predictions obtained from low-density expansions, as well as from other many-body techniques. The analysis of a variety of properties, including the ground-state energy, the effective mass, and the momentum distribution, shows that the effective-interaction approach is quite accurate, thus suggesting that it may be employed to achieve a consistent description of the structure and dynamics of nuclear matter in the density region relevant to astrophysical applications.
The formalism based on Correlated Basis Functions (CBF) and the cluster-expansion technique has been recently employed to derive an effective interaction from a realistic nuclear Hamiltonian. One of the main objectives of the work described in this Thesis is establishing the accuracy of this novel approach--that allows to combine the flexibility of perturbation theory in the basis of eigenstates of the noninteracting system with a realistic description of short-range correlations in coordinate space--by focusing on the hard-sphere fermion system. As a first application of the formalism, the quasiparticle properties of hard spheres of degeneracy four have been determined from the two-point Green's function. The calculation has been performed carrying out a perturbative expansion of the self-energy, up to the second order in the CBF effective interaction. The main results of this study are the momentum distributions, the quasiparticle spectra and their description in terms of effective mass. The investigation of the hard-sphere fermion fluid has been extended to study the shear viscosity and thermal conductivity coefficients of the system with degeneracy two, that can be regarded as a model of pure neutron matter. The resulting transport coefficients show a strong sensitivity to the quasiparticle effective mass, reflecting the effect of second order contributions to the self-energy which are not taken into account in nuclear matter studies available in the literature. The difference between first and second order results is likely to play an important role in astrophysical applications and needs to be carefully investigated extending our analysis to nuclear matter.
The equation of state of symmetric nuclear matter is addressed starting both from a realistic interaction derived from nucleon-nucleon scattering processes and from a low-momentum effective potential. The approach is based on finite temperature Green’s functions. The internal energy per particle is estimated from the summation of diagrams and through the Galitskii-Koltun’s sum rule. At present, there is not a unique and reliable theory of nuclear interactions. From the study of nucleon-nucleon scattering processes different models for the basic interaction between nucleons have been developed, but difficulties arise when they are used in calculations which aim to reproduce the properties of bound nuclei. These models all reproduce the experimental N-N phase shifts up to the threshold for pion production with high accuracy, but differ in the short-wavelength region, where less experimental constraints are available. In deriving the properties of dense nuclear matter, if we start from a bare N-N potential we have to take into account the complex correlations induced
The description of Fermi systems based on Correlated Basis Functions (CBF) is a natural extension of the variational approach, in which the trial ground state wave function is written in the form. The main problem associated with the neglect, or the approximate treatment, of elementary diagrams is the possible violation of the variational principle, which may become significant at high density. Besides the capability to systematically improve upon the variational estimates of the ground-state energy, the CBF formalism provides a consistent framework to carry out calculations of different nuclear matter properties. In CBF perturbation theory, one has to evaluate matrix elements of the bare nuclear Hamiltonian, the effects of correlations being taken into account by the transformation of the basis states describing the non interacting system. However, the same result can in principle be obtained transforming the Hamiltonian, and using the Fermi gas basis.
The method of correlated basis functions provides a means of systematically exploiting our intuitive understanding of real physical systems. Here we seek especially to develop a formalism for describing systems of strongly interacting fermions, for example, nuclei and liquid
He3, using a complete set of correlated functions ${\ensuremath{\Psi}}_{\mathrm{m}}=\frac{F{\ensuremath{\Phi}}_{\mathrm{m}}}{{({\ensuremath{\Phi}}_{\mathrm{m}}, {F}^{2}{\ensuremath{\Phi}}_{\mathrm{m}})}^{\frac{1}{2}}}$.
F is taken as a product of two-body factors, $\ensuremath{\Pi}{i<j}^{}[f({r}_{\mathrm{ij}})]$, the
f(rij) embodying at least the correlations arising from strong short-range repulsions; and ${{\ensuremath{\Phi}}_{\mathrm{m}}}$, a set of independent-particle-model functions which might serve as a basis in the absence of highly singular interactions. The matrix elements
Hmn,
Nmn of the Hamiltonian and identity operators with respect to the correlated basis ${{\ensuremath{\Psi}}_{\mathrm{m}}}$ are evaluated by generalization of cluster-expansion techniques developed originally for the calculation of the partition function of a classical imperfect gas and adapted to the quantum-mechanical many-body problem by Iwamoto and Yamada. Contributions to our expansions for the
Hmn are classified according to order of magnitude in the quantity $\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\omega}$, where $\ensuremath{\omega}=\ensuremath{\int}({f}^{2}(r)\ensuremath{-}1)d\mathrm{r}$ is a "correlation parameter" and $\ensuremath{\rho}$ the average particle density. To the extent that $|\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\omega}|$ is small, it provides a true expansion parameter. A detailed technical discussion of the cluster expansions is given, with special emphasis on their symmetry properties upon truncation. Although the many-body problem is soluble by simultaneous diagonalization of the matrices (
Hmn) and (
Nmn), it is preferable first to transform to an orthonormal basis of "unperturbed" correlated functions ${{\ensuremath{\Theta}}_{\mathrm{m}}}$ with respect to which the Hamiltonian and identity operators have the matrix representations (
Hmn) and $({N}_{\mathrm{mn}})=({\ensuremath{\delta}}_{\mathrm{mn}})$, and then to attempt the separate diagonalization of (
Hmn). In general, such a transformation is expedited by the L\"owdin procedure carried out to the desired order in $\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\omega}$. However, a Schmidt orthogonalization scheme might prove more advantageous in specific cases. Field-theoretic techniques (of both perturbative and nonperturbative nature) may be brought to bear in the diagonalization of (
Hmn). The inverse of the unitary transformation which takes the basis ${{\ensuremath{\Phi}}_{\mathrm{m}}}$ into the basis ${{\ensuremath{\Theta}}_{\mathrm{m}}}$, applied to the given singular Hamiltonian, leads---for any
F in the class considered---to a non-singular "effective Hamiltonian." Following this formal cue, we set out to construct explicitly a second-quantized effective Hamiltonian which generates the same matrix elements, to prescribed order in $\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\omega}$, when operating between independent-particle kets of the model occupation-number representation, as does the given Hamiltonian in the configuration-space representation, between the corresponding correlated functions of the L\"owdin basis. The quasiparticles described by this effective Hamiltonian interact via well-behaved two-body, three-body, \ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{},
Q-body, \ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{}\ifmmode\cdot\else\textperiodcentered\fi{} potentials, in contrast to the highly singular two-body interactions of the real particles. For small $|\ensuremath{\rho}\ensuremath{\omega}|$, the effective two-body forces predominate. An avenue to deeper understanding of the applicability of the nuclear-shell model and the dressed-quasiparticle theory of liquid
He3 has been opened. This article treats only the formalism for a uniform extended medium. Numerical calculations, as well as the extension of the method to finite systems, will follow.
The self-consistent Green’s function method within the ladder approximation provides a microscopic description of correlated nuclear systems which properly treats the nucleon-nucleon correlations induced by the short-range and tensor components present in any realistic interaction. These correlations produce a sizable depletion of low momenta below the Fermi surface as well as the occupation of high momenta in the nuclear ground state. A few representative results for nuclear matter are presented to illustrate the present progress in the application of this method to nuclear systems.