Studying short-range correlations and momentum distributions with unitarily transformed operators

Abstract

Short-range correlations in 4He are investigated using many-body wave functions obtained in the no-core shell model. The similarity renormalization group (SRG) is used to evolve the Argonne V8' interaction and the density operators. The effects of short-range correlations are reflected in the two-body densities in coordinate space as a function of the distance between two nucleons, or alternatively in in momentum space as function of the relative momentum between two nucleons. The SRG transformation is performed in two-body approximation. The importance of missing three-body and higher-body contributions is investigated by comparing results obtained for different flow parameters and by comparing to exact results with the bare Argonne V8' interaction obtained in the correlated Gaussian approach.