  The short range repulsion between nucleons is treated by a unitary
correlation operator which shifts the nucleons away from each other whenever
their uncorrelated positions are within the replusive core. By formulating the
correlation as a transformation of the relative distance between particle
pairs, general analytic expressions for the correlated wave functions and
correlated operators are given. The decomposition of correlated operators into
irreducible n-body operators is discussed. The one- and two-body-irreducible
parts are worked out explicitly and the contribution of three-body correlations
is estimated to check convergence. Ground state energies of nuclei up to mass
number A=48 are calculated with a spin-isospin-dependent potential and single
Slater determinants as uncorrelated states. They show that the deduced energy-
and mass-number-independent correlated two-body Hamiltonian reproduces all
"exact" many-body calculations surprisingly well.
