On the Relativistic Description of the Nucleus

We discuss a relativistic theory of the atomic nuclei in the framework of the hamiltonian formalism and of the mesonic model of the nucleus. Attention is paid to the translational invariance of the theory. Our approach is centered on the concept of spectral amplitude, a function in the Dirac spinor space. We derive a Lorentz covariant equation for the latter, which requires as an input the baryon self-energy. For this we either postulate the most general Lorentz-Poincar\'e invariant expression or perform a calculation via a Bethe-Salpeter equation starting from a nucleon-nucleus interaction. We discuss the features of the nuclear spectrum obtained in the first instance. Finally the general constraints the self-energy should satisfy because of analyticity and Poincar\'e covariance are discussed.