Relevance of High-momentum Nucleons for Nuclear Phenomena

A brief review is given concerning the status of the theoretical work on nucleon spectral functions. A recent concern about the validity of the concept of spectroscopic factors as deduced from (e,ep) reactions at higher Q, is discussed in some detail. The consequences of the observed spectral strength are then considered in the context of nuclear saturation. It is argued that short-range correlations are mainly responsible for the actual value of the observed charge density in Pb and by extension for the empirical value of the saturation density of nuclear matter. This observation combined with the general understanding of the spectroscopic strength suggests that a renewed study of nuclear matter, emphasizing the selfconsistent determination of the spectral strength due to short-range and tensor correlations, may shed light on the perennial nuclear saturation problem. First results using such a scheme are presented.