Relativistic chiral mean field model for finite nuclei

We present a method for proper treatment of pion-exchange interaction in the nuclear many-body problem in a relativistic chiral mean field (RCMF) model. The pionic correlation is expressed in 2-particle 2-hole (2p–2h) states in addition to the standard mean field state, to describe the full strength of pionic correlations. The effect of the short-range repulsion is included by way of the unitary correlation operator method (UCOM) for the central part of the pion-exchange interaction. We apply the RCMF model to 12C and 16O. The convergence of pionic energy contributions is realized with pionic quantum number Jπ up to 10− for 12C and 11+ for 16O. The pion-exchange interaction gives the dominant contribution to the binding energy. The pion plays an important role in the formation of the jj-magic shell effect by way of the Pauli-blocking mechanism of the pion-exchange interaction. The lower pionic quantum numbers Jπ⩽3+ are the dominant components of the nuclear surface structure.