The saturating effect of N*(1234) on the binding of light nuclei

The binding energy shifts arising from the explicit inclusion of intermediate states involving a N*(1234) are calculated for the light nuclei 4He, 12C and 16O. An oscillator approximation is made for the single-nucleon wavefunctions and the two-body correlations are taken from an LOCV calculation. It is observed that the Pauli effect per nucleon is essentially the same in all three nuclei and is similar to that found in the nucleon fluids. The dispersion effect in the light nuclei is smaller than in the nucleon fluids. It is concluded that these contributions will have a large effect on the saturation of finite nuclei. (author)