55 YEARS OF THE SHELL MODEL: A CHALLENGE TO NUCLEAR MANY-BODY THEORY

Abstract

Shell model calculations of nuclear energies and wave functions of nucleons outside closed shells interacting by effective two-body forces yield good agreement with much experimental data. Many attempts have been made to calculate nuclear energies ab initio, by starting from some form of an interaction between free nucleons. Recent results of such calculations claim to obtain reasonable agreement with measured energies. These results, however, are obtained for wave functions which are very complicated. It is difficult to see how such wave functions are consistent with independent nucleon motion, the very essence of the shell model. In some of those calculations, 3-body interactions play a very important role. This is puzzling since nuclear energies are accurately obtained in shell model calculations by using only effective two-body interactions. In this paper, some examples of simple shell model calculations are reviewed. They exhibit good agreement with experiment and the apparent absence of the need for effective 3-body interactions.