Abstract
Shell-model calculations are performed on O18, Ca42, Zr90, Po210, and F18 using separable potential forms. In most cases, the potentials have been fitted to low- and intermediate-energy two-body data. The over-all agreement is quite good, and the calculations are considerably simpler than similar ones using hard-core potentials. Replacing the potential matrix by an approximate reaction matrix offers no general improvement and produces results which are comparatively insensitive to the potential parameters.