η in the nuclear medium within a chiral unitary approach Original Research Article

The s-wave η self-energy in the nuclear medium is calculated in a chiral unitary approach. A coupled channel Bethe–Salpeter equation is solved to obtain the effective ηN interaction in the medium. The base model reproduces well the free space πN elastic and inelastic scattering at the ηN threshold or N∗(1535) region. The Pauli blocking on the nucleons, binding potentials for the baryons and self-energies of the mesons are incorporated, including the η self-energy in a self-consistent way. Our calculation predicts about −54−i29 MeV for the optical potential at normal nuclear matter for an η at threshold but also shows a strong energy dependence of the potential.