J. Phys. G: Nucl. Part. Phys. 26 (2000) 1795–1807. Printed in the UK PII: S0954-3899(00)13631-X Central Jastrow and linear state-dependent correlations in nuclei E Buend´ ıa†, F J G´ alvez†, J Praena† and A Sarsa‡ † Departamento de F´ ısica Moderna, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, E-18071 Granada, Spain ‡ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA Received 27 April 2000, in final form 2 October 2000 Abstract. Linearized state-dependent and central Jastrow correlated trial wavefunctions are used to study the ground state of spin–isospin saturated p-shell nuclei with V4-type forces. We extend the variational Monte Carlo method to incorporate this kind of operatorial correlation by introducing only minor changes with respect to the case of central correlations. Very good energies are obtained with this wavefunction for the nuclei studied. Finally, a discussion of the role of the different correlation mechanisms included in this trial wavefunction is performed in terms of both the momentum distribution and the one- and two-particle densities in position space. 1. Introduction Short-range correlations have traditionally been separated from mean-field effects such as particle–hole excitations in the theoretical description of nuclear bound states. Thus microscopic theories that consider one of these mechanisms, usually does not take the other into account in an efficient way. Within the framework of the variational approach a functional form for the trial wavefunction has recently been proposed [1, 2] that includes efficiently both short- range correlations, by means of a scalar Jastrow-type correlation factor, and state-dependent translationally invariant pair correlations, by using a function which imposes both rotational and translational invariance in the lowest order of the coupled-cluster theory [3, 4]. This trial wavefunction for an A nucleon system can be written as (1,...,A) = F J (1,...,A)F L (1,...,A) 0 (1,...,A) (1) where 0 is the so-called model wavefunction built from a given mean field, which constitutes the reference state for both the Jastrow approximation and the coupled-cluster method. The Jastrow factor F J is F J (1,...,A) = A i<j f(r ij ) (2) 0954-3899/00/121795+13$30.00 © 2000 IOP Publishing Ltd 1795