RELATIVISTIC MEAN FIELD-THEORY OF NUCLEI WITH A VECTOR-MESON SELF-INTERACTION

The inclusion of an isoscalar vector-meson quartic self-interaction (VSI) in the relativistic mean field theory of nuclei is discussed. We consider mostly nuclear matter, and in particular the equation of state (EOS) at T = 0. A VSI softens the EOS; in particular a moderately strong VSI gives an EOS similar to those obtained from nonrelativistic many-body calculations. Estimates of the spin-orbit splitting in light nuclei indicate that this splitting is not sensitive to the strength of the VSI and will depend mostly on the effective mass M*. The energy dependence of the optical potential gives M*/M congruent-to 0.6 independent of the VSI, and consistent with that obtained from the spin-orbit splitting.