Normally, we start we a nucleon-nucleon interaction fitted to reproduce scattering data.
It is common then to represent this interaction in terms relative momenta \( k \), the center-of-mass momentum \( K \)
and various partial wave quantum numbers like the spin \( S \), the total relative angular momentum \( {\cal J} \), isospin \( T \) and relative orbital momentum \( l \) and finally the corresponding center-of-mass \( L \).
We can then write the free interaction matrix \( V \) as
$$
\langle kKlL{\cal J}ST\vert\hat{V}\vert k'Kl'L{\cal J}S'T\rangle.
$$
Transformations from the relative and center-of-mass motion
system to the lab system will be discussed
below.