The influence of short-range correlations on the momentum and energy
distribution of nucleons in nuclei is evaluated assuming a realistic
meson-exchange potential for the nucleon-nucleon interaction. Using the
Green-function approach the calculations are performed directly for the finite
nucleus 16O avoiding the local density approximation and its reference to
studies of infinite nuclear matter. The nucleon-nucleon correlations induced by
the short-range and tensor components of the interaction yield an enhancement
of the momentum distribution at high momenta as compared to the Hartree-Fock
description. These high-momentum components should be observed mainly in
nucleon knockout reactions like (e,e′p) leaving the final nucleus in a state
of high excitation energy. Our analysis also demonstrates that non-negligible
contributions to the momentum distribution should be found in partial waves
which are unoccupied in the simple shell-model. The treatment of correlations
beyond the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approximation also yields an improvement for
the calculated ground-state properties.Comment: 12 pages RevTeX, 7 figures postscript files appende
