  We employ correlated realistic nucleon-nucleon interactions for the
description of nuclear ground states throughout the nuclear chart within the
Hartree-Fock approximation. The crucial short-range central and tensor
correlations, which are induced by the realistic interaction and cannot be
described by the Hartree-Fock many-body state itself, are included explicitly
by a state-independent unitary transformation in the framework of the unitary
correlation operator method (UCOM). Using the correlated realistic interaction
V_UCOM resulting from the Argonne V18 potential, bound nuclei are obtained
already on the Hartree-Fock level. However, the binding energies are smaller
than the experimental values because long-range correlations have not been
accounted for. Their inclusion by means of many-body perturbation theory leads
to a remarkable agreement with experimental binding energies over the whole
mass range from He-4 to Pb-208, even far off the valley of stability. The
observed perturbative character of the residual long-range correlations and the
apparently small net effect of three-body forces provides promising
perspectives for a unified nuclear structure description.
