Relativistic Approach to Superfluidity in Nuclear Matter

Pairing correlations in symmetric nuclear matter are studied within a relativistic mean-field approximation based on a field theory of nucleons coupled to neutral ($\sigma$ and $\omega$) and to charged ($\varrho$) mesons. The Hartree-Fock and the pairing fields are calculated in a self-consistent way. The energy gap is the result of a strong cancellation between the scalar and vector components of the pairing field. We find that the pair amplitude vanishes beyond a certain value of momentum of the paired nucleons. This fact determines an effective cutoff in the gap equation. The value of this cutoff gives an energy gap in agreement with the estimates of non relativistic calculations.