Hartree-Fock and many body perturbation theory with correlated realistic NN interactions

We employ correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions for the description of nuclear ground states throughout the nuclear chart within the Hartree-Fock approximation. The crucial short-range central and tensor correlations, which are induced by the realistic interaction and cannot be described by the Hartree-Fock many-body state itself, are included explicitly by a state-independent unitary transformation in the framework of the unitary correlation operator method (UCOM). Using the correlated realistic interaction V_UCOM resulting from the Argonne V18 potential, bound nuclei are already obtained on the Hartree-Fock level. However, the binding energies are smaller than the experimental values because long-range correlations have not been accounted for. Their inclusion by means of many-body perturbation theory leads to a remarkable agreement with experimental binding energies over the whole mass range from ⁴He to ²⁰⁸Pb, even far off the valley of stability. The observed perturbative character of the residual long-range correlations and the apparently small net effect of three-body forces provides promising perspectives for a unified nuclear structure description.