State-dependent calculation of three-body cluster energy for nuclear matter and the validity of the lowest order constrained variational formalism

It is shown that the method of lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) which is based on the cluster expansion theory is a reliable many-body technique to calculate the nuclear matter equation of state. In this respect, the state dependent correlation functions and the effective interactions which have been produced by the LOCV calculation with the Reid and Δ-Reid soft core interactions are used to estimate the size of higher order cluster terms such as the effect of three-body cluster energy on the nuclear matter ground state energy. Finally it is shown that the LOCV normalization constraint plays a major role in the convergence of the cluster expansion and the result of LOCV calculation can be as good as more sophisticated approaches which go beyond lowest order