Validity of the Intermediate-Coupling Approximation

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Abstract
In this paper the internal consistency of the intermediate coupling approximation, applied by Friedman, Lee, and Christian to the meson theory, is discussed critically. It is shown: (a) that the description of low-energy mesons in the cloud is quite unreliable; (b) that the approximation becomes more adequate for high energies, the expression for the ground-state self-energy is much better than the one given by a Tamm-Dancoff method; (c) that the structure of the nucleon as described by intermediate coupling does not give directly any sensible result about scattering; (d) that the agreement found by Friedman, Lee, and Christian between theoretical results and experimental phase shifts follows essentially from the presence of the zero- and one-meson states in the scattering trial function and is not a consequence of any particular choice for the physical nucleon state.