The importance of few-nucleon forces in chiral effective field theory

• We study the importance of few-nucleon forces in chiral effective field theory for describing many-nucleon systems. A combinatorial argument suggests that three-nucleon forces-which are conventionally regarded as next-to-next-to-leading order-should accompany the two-nucleon force already at leading order (LO) starting with mass number A≃ 10–20. We find that this promotion enables the first realistic description of the 16 O ground state based on a renormalization-group-invariant LO interaction. We also performed coupled-cluster calculations of the equation of state for symmetric nuclear matter and our results indicate that LO four-nucleon forces could play a crucial role for describing heavy-mass nuclei. The enhancement mechanism we found is very general and could be important also in other many-body problems.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Subatomär fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Subatomic Physics (hsv//eng)

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Fysik -- Annan fysik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Physical Sciences -- Other Physics Topics (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

art (subject category)

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