On the self-consistency requirement in the low density expansion of the optical potential in nuclear matter

We critically discuss the choice of the auxiliary potential U which is introduced in the low density expansion of the mass operator M(k, w). This choice is related to the analytical properties of M(k, w) in the complex w-plane and we take due account of momentum conservation in the intermediate states appearing in the diagrams associated with M(k, w). We also provide a computation of the one-hole line, rearrangement and renormalization contributions to the optical potential, of the hole state spectral function and of the momentum distribution in nuclear matter. We use a real auxiliary potential which is self-consistent up to the order considered here, i.e. which takes into account the rearrangement and the renormalization corrections. Rearrangement is treated rigorously. The dependence of the obtained results on the choice of the nucleon-nucleon interaction, namely the Hamman-Ho Kim one in our calculation, is discussed.