Eur. Phys. J. A (2014) 50: 12
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2014-14012-3

Review

Three-body force effect on nuclear symmetry energy and single-particle properties of asymmetric nuclear matter

¹ Institute of Modern Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 730000, Lanzhou, China
² State Key Laboratory of Theoretical Physics, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 100190, Beijing, China
³ Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Fermi”, Università di Pisa, and INFN, Sezione di Pisa, Largo B. Pontecorvo, 3, Pisa, I-56127, Italy
⁴ Università di Catania and Laboratori Nazionali del Sud (INFN), 95123, Catania, Italy

^* e-mail: zuowei@impcas.ac.cn

Received: 8 October 2013
Revised: 16 November 2013
Accepted: 21 November 2013
Published online: 25 February 2014

Abstract

We present an upgraded review of our microscopic investigation on the single-particle properties and the EOS of isospin asymmetric nuclear matter within the framework of the Brueckner theory extended to include a microscopic three-body force. We pay special attention to the discussion of the three-body force effect and the comparison of our results with the predictions by other ab initio approaches. Three-body force is shown to be necessary for reproducing the empirical saturation properties of symmetric nuclear matter within nonrelativistic microscopic frameworks, and also for extending the hole-line expansion to a wide density range. The three-body force effect on nuclear symmetry energy is repulsive, and it leads to a significant stiffening of the density dependence of symmetry energy at supra-saturation densities. Within the Brueckner approach, the three-body force affects the nucleon s.p. potentials primarily via its rearrangement contribution which is strongly repulsive and momentum-dependent at high densities and high momenta. Both the rearrangement contribution induced by the three-body force and the effect of ground-state correlations are crucial for predicting reliably the single-particle properties within the Brueckner framework.