High-momentum components in the nuclear symmetry energy

Abstract

The short-range and tensor correlations associated to realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions induce a population of high-momentum components in the many-body nuclear wave function. We study the impact of such high-momentum components on bulk observables associated to isospin asymmetric matter. The kinetic part of the symmetry energy is strongly reduced by correlations when compared to the non-interacting case. The origin of this behaviour is elucidated using realistic interactions with different short-range and tensor structures. © 2012 Europhysics Letters Association.