Coupled cluster theory is an attractive tool to solve the quantum many-body problem because its singles and doubles (CCSD) approximation is computationally affordable and yields about 90% of the correlation energy. Capturing the remaining 10%, e.g., via including triples, is numerically expensive. Here, we assume that short-range three-body correlations dominate and—following Lepage (arXiv:nucl-th/9706029)—that their effects can be included within CCSD by renormalizing the three-body contact interaction. We renormalize this contact in ${}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ and obtain systematically improved CCSD results for ${}^{24}\mathrm{O}, {}^{20–34}\mathrm{Ne}, {}^{40,48}\mathrm{Ca}, {}^{78}\mathrm{Ni}, {}^{90}\mathrm{Zr}$, and ${}^{100}\mathrm{Sn}$.

• Received 27 May 2022
• Accepted 10 November 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.L061302