The lowest order constrained variational method is used to calculate the properties of asymmetrical nuclear matter with the new charge-independent breaking, Argonne $V_{18}$ ${(AV}_{18}),$ as well as Argonne $V_{14}$ ${(AV}_{14})$ potentials, for a wide range of density and proton to neutron ratio. The new ${\mathrm{AV}}_{18}$ potential, unlike ${\mathrm{AV}}_{14}$ and Δ-Reid interactions, overbinds nuclear matter at a saturation density of about $0.31{\mathrm{fm}}^{\mathrm{-}3}$ which agrees well with the variational method based on hypernetted chain summation techniques. It is shown that it is not a good approximation to use the result of nuclear and neutron matter to get the equation of state of asymmetrical nuclear matter with an empirical parabolic approximation. Finally, various properties of asymmetrical nuclear matter such as incompressibility, symmetry energy, etc., are given and a comparison is made with the other many-body techniques.

• Received 17 June 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.57.714