paper

Exactness of the normal-ordered two-body truncation of three-nucleon forces

arXiv:2508.01507 · doi:10.1103/psnh-gc5k

Abstract

Reference-state-based many-body methods start from Hamiltonians that are normal ordered with respect to the reference state. In low-energy nuclear physics applications normal-ordered Hamiltonians consisting of two- and three-nucleon forces are usually truncated at the two-body rank with residual three-nucleon operators being discarded. Benchmark computations have shown that this truncation is accurate, but we lack an understanding about why it works. We show that the normal-ordered two-body truncation is exact for zero-range three-body forces when nuclei are computed using the coupled cluster with singles and doubles method. As the nuclear three-nucleon force is short ranged and a three-body contact is a leading term in effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics, our result provides an analytical basis for the popular normal-ordered two-body approximation.

6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

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