LOCV CALCULATIONS OF PRESSURE IN NUCLEAR-MATTER AT FINITE-TEMPERATURE

The lowest-order constrained variational method is used to calculate the equation of state of hot nuclear matter. The calculations are performed for a wide range of densities of interest in heavy-ion collisions and astrophysics. A realistic nuclear Hamiltonian that contains N-N and N-DELTA interactions and fits N-N scattering as well as nuclear matter saturation data is used. Besides spin, isospin, total angular momentum and density dependence, the correlation functions are also arranged to depend on the temperature of the system. The liquid-vapour, phase equilibrium, as well as the behaviour of the effective mass in nuclear matter, is discussed.