Solution to the Bethe-Faddeev equation within the continuous version of the hole-line expansion

The contribution of the three-body correlations to the binding energy of symmetric nuclear matter is calculated, within the continuous version of the hole-line expansion, by means of the direct matrix inversion method. For the nucleon-nucleon interactions considered in this paper, we find that at the three-hole-line level, the saturation curve is fairly close to the saturation curve obtained within the standard version. The role of the various contributions to the binding energy is discussed in detail.