Pionic retardation effects in two-pion-exchange three-nucleon forces

Those two-pion-exchange three-nucleon forces which arise from nuclear processes that involve only pions and nucleons are calculated. Among the processes which contribute are pion seagulls (e.g., nucleon-antinucleon pair terms) and overlapping, retarded pion exchanges. The resulting potential is shown to be a (v/c)² relativistic correction, and satisfies nontrivial constraints from special relativity. The relativistic ambiguities found before in treatments of relativistic corrections to the one-pion-exchange nuclear charge operator and two-body potential are also present in the three-nucleon potential. The resulting three-nucleon force differs from the original Tucson-Melbourne potential only in the presence of several new nonlocal terms, and in the specification of the choice of ambiguity parameters in the latter potential.