CONVERGENCE OF THE BINDING-ENERGY EXPANSION IN THE BRUECKNER-BETHE-GOLDSTONE THEORY OF NUCLEAR-MATTER

Two-, three- and four-body contributions to the binding energy of nuclear matter are evaluated in the framework of the Bethe-Brueckner expansion. Special attention is devoted to the choice of the auxiliary single particle field and to the potential diagrams at the level of three- and four-hole lines present when such a field is different from zero. Two nucleon-nucleon interactions are used: a model interaction V1 and the Reid soft-core interaction. For V1 our results are compared with those obtained from variational calculations; this comparison supports the reliability of the perturbative expansion. © 1979.