Variational Methods for Nuclear Systems with Dynamical Mesons

We derive a model Hamiltonian whose ground state expectation value of any two-body operator coincides with that obtained with the Jastrow correlated wave function of the many-body Fermi system. Using this Hamiltonian we show that the variational principle can be extended to treat systems with dynamical mesons, even if in this case the concept of wave function looses its meaning.