Improving the predictive power of nuclear mean fields from two-body interactions

The number of parameters entering the nuclear mean field description, and possible correlations among those parameters, has become a very important issue in the treatment of the nuclear many-body problem. We would like to illustrate on the example of the spin-orbit interaction how a mean field can be constructed out of the two-body interaction, and give some illustrations leading to a better understanding of how such a construction can be handled