The short-range and tensor correlations associated to realistic
nucleon-nucleon interactions induce a population of high-momentum components in
the many-body nuclear wave function. We study the impact of such high-momentum
components on bulk observables associated to isospin asymmetric matter. The
kinetic part of the symmetry energy is strongly reduced by correlations when
compared to the non-interacting case. The origin of this behavior is elucidated
using realistic interactions with different short-range and tensor structures.Comment: 15 page