We discuss the description of a many-body nuclear system using Hamiltonians that contain the nucleon relativistic kinetic energy and potentials with relativistic corrections. Through the Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation, the field theoretical problem of interacting nucleons and mesons is mapped to an equivalent one in terms of relativistic potentials, which are then expanded at some order in $\frac{1}{m_N}$. The formalism is applied to the Hartree problem in nuclear matter, showing how the results of the relativistic mean field theory can be recovered over a wide range of densities.

• Received 19 December 1995

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.53.2801