Thermodynamic properties of nuclear matter with three-body forces

Abstract

We calculate thermodynamic quantities in symmetric nuclear matter within the self-consistent Green's functions method including three-body forces. The thermodynamic potential is computed directly from a diagrammatic expansion, implemented with the CD-Bonn and Nijmegen nucleon-nucleon potentials and the Urbana three-body forces. We present results for entropy and pressure up to temperatures of 20 MeV and densities of 0.32 fm^-3. While the pressure is sensitive to the inclusion of three-body forces, the entropy is not. The unstable spinodal region is identified and the critical temperature associated to the liquid-gas phase transition is determined. When three-body forces are added we find a strong reduction of the critical temperature, obtaining T_c ~ 12 MeV.