Pairing of strongly correlated nucleons

Willem H. Dickhoff

Dept. of Physics Washington University in St. Louis

A complete survey of the pairing properties of nucleonic matter is presented that includes the complete off-shell propagation associated with short-range and tensor correlations. For this purpose, the gap equation has been solved in its most general form employing the complete energy and momentum dependence of the normal self-energy contributions. The latter correlations include the self-consistent calculation of the nucleon self-energy that is generated by the summation of ladder diagrams. A huge reduction in the strength and density range of proton-neutron pairing is obtained for nuclear matter as compared to the standard BCS treatment. Similar dramatic results pertain to pairing of neutrons in neutron matter, which are compared to recent Monte Carlo calculations. Implications for other many-fermion systems are discussed.