The constraints imposed by chiral symmetry on hadron correlation functions in nuclear medium are discussed. It is shown that these constraints imply a certain structure for the in-medium hadron correlators and lead to the cancelation of the order $rho m_pi$ term in the in-medium nucleon correlator. We also consider the effect of mixing of the chiral partners correlation functions arising from the interaction of nuclear pions with corresponding interpolating currents. It reflects the phenomena of partial restoration of chiral symmetry. The different scenarios of such restoration are briefly discussed.
The effective field theory of NN interactions in nuclear matter is considered. Due to the Pauli principle the effective NN amplitude is not affected by the shallow bound states. We show that the next-to-leading order terms in the chiral expansion of the effective NN potential can be interpreted as corrections so the expansion is systematic. The value of potential energy per particle is calculated and some issues concerning the chiral effective theory of nuclear matter are outlined.
Using two-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions derived in the framework of chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) with and without the explicit $Delta$ isobar contributions, we calculate the energy per particle of symmetric nuclear matter and pure neutron matter in the framework of the microscopic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach. In particular, we present for the first time nuclear matter calculations using the new fully local in coordinate-space two-nucleon interaction at the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order (N3LO) of ChPT with $Delta$ isobar intermediate states (N3LO$Delta$) recently developed by Piarulli et al. [arXiv:1606:06335]. We find that using this N3LO$Delta$ potential, supplemented with a local N2LO three-nucleon interaction with explicit $Delta$ isobar degrees of freedom, it is possible to obtain a satisfactory saturation point of symmetric nuclear matter. For this combination of two- and three-nucleon interactions we also calculate the nuclear symmetry energy and we compare our results with the empirical constraints on this quantity obtained using the excitation energies to isobaric analog states in nuclei and using experimental data on the neutron skin thickness of heavy nuclei, finding a very good agreement with these empirical constraints in all the considered nucleonic density range. In addition, we find that the explicit inclusion of $Delta$ isobars diminishes the strength of the three-nucleon interactions needed the get a good saturation point of symmetric nuclear matter. We also compare the results of our calculations with those obtained by other research groups using chiral nuclear interactions with different many-body methods, finding in many cases a very satisfactory agreement.
Short range particle repulsion is rather important property of the hadronic and nuclear matter equations of state. We present a novel equation of state which is based on the virial expansion for the multicomponent mixtures with hard-core repulsion. In addition to the hard-core repulsion taken into account by the proper volumes of particles, this equation of state explicitly contains the surface tension which is induced by another part of the hard-core repulsion between particles. At high densities the induced surface tension vanishes and the excluded volume treatment of hard-core repulsion is switched to its proper volume treatment. Possible applications of this equation of state to a description of hadronic multiplicities measured in A+A collisions, to an investigation of the nuclear matter phase diagram properties and to the neutron star interior modeling are discussed.
The effective chiral theory of the in-medium NN interactions is considered. The shallow bound states, which complicate the effective field theory analysis in vacuum do not exist in matter. We show that the next-to-leading order terms in the chiral expansion of the effective Lagrangian can be interpreted as corrections so that the expansion is systematic. The Low Energy Effective Constants of this Lagrangian are found to satisfy the concept of naturalness. The potential energy per particle is calculated. The problems and challenges in constructing the chiral theory of nuclear matter are outlined.
The single-nucleon potential in hot nuclear matter is investigated in the framework of the Brueckner theory by adopting the realistic Argonne V18 or Nijmegen 93 two-body nucleon-nucleon interaction supplemented by a microscopic three-body force. The rearrangement contribution to the single-particle potential induced by the ground state correlations is calculated in terms of the hole-line expansion of the mass operator and provides a significant repulsive contribution in the low-momentum region around and below the Fermi surface. Increasing temperature leads to a reduction of the effect, while increasing density makes it become stronger. The three-body force suppresses somewhat the ground state correlations due to its strong short-range repulsion, increasing with density. Inclusion of the three-body force contribution results in a quite different temperature dependence of the single-particle potential at high enough densities as compared to that adopting the pure two-body force. The effects of three-body force and ground state correlations on the nucleon effective mass are also discussed.