Eur. Phys. J. A (2004) 22: 199-211
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2004-10035-7

On the relativistic description of the nucleus

¹ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, via Dodecaneso 33, 16146, Genova, Italy
² Institute for Nuclear Research, 117312, Moscow, Russia

^* e-mail: cenni@ge.infn.it

Received: 23 February 2004
Accepted: 28 May 2004
Published online: 3 November 2004

Abstract

We present a formalism able to generalise to a relativistically covariant scheme the standard nuclear shell model. We show that, using some generalised nuclear Green’s functions and their Lehmann representation we can define the relativistic equivalent of the non-relativistic single-particle wave function (not losing, however, the physical contribution of other degrees of freedom, like mesons and antinucleons). It is shown that the mass operator associated to the nuclear Green’s function can be approximated with the equivalent of a shell model potential and that the corresponding “single-particle wave functions” can be easily derived in a specified frame of reference and then boosted to any other system, thus fully restoring the Lorentz covariance.