Low Momentum Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions and Shell-Model Calculations

In the last few years, the low-momentum nucleon-nucleon (NN) interaction V-low-k derived from free-space NN potentials has been successfully used in shell-model calculations. V-low-k is a smooth potential which preserves the deuteron binding energy as well as the half-on-shell T-matrix of the original NN potential up to a momentum cutoff Lambda. In this paper we put to the test a new low-momentum NN potential derived from chiral perturbation theory at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order with a sharp low-momentum cutoff at 2.1 fm-1. Shell-model calculations for the oxygen isotopes using effective hamiltonians derived from both types of low-momentum potential are performed. We find that the two potentials show the same perturbative behavior and yield very similar results.