Abstract
We review how nuclear forces emerge from low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD) via chiral effective field theory (EFT). During the past two decades, this approach has evolved into a powerful tool to derive nuclear two- and many-body forces in a systematic and model-independent way. We then focus on the nucleon-nucleon (N N) interaction and show in detail how, governed by chiral symmetry, the long- and intermediate-range of the N N potential builds up order by order. We proceed up to sixth order in small momenta, where convergence is achieved. The final result allows for a full assessment of the validity of the chiral EFT approach to the N N interaction.
Highlights
The past 15 years have seen great progress in our understanding of nuclear forces in terms of low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD). Key to this development was the realization that low-energy QCD is equivalent to an effective field theory (EFT) which allows for a perturbative expansion that has become known as chiral perturbation theory (ChPT)
Two- and many-body forces emerge on an equal footing and the empirical fact that nuclear many-body forces are substantially weaker than the two-nucleon force is explained naturally
We have presented the order-by-order contributions from Leading Order (LO) (∼ Q0 ) to N5 LO (∼ Q6 )
Summary
After the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick in 1932 [1], it was clear that the atomic nucleus is made up from protons and neutrons. The force between quarks, which is created by the exchange of gluons, has the feature of being very strong at the low energy-scale that is characteristic of nuclear physics. Pion-nucleon processes can be calculated without problem This effective field theory can be expanded in powers of momentum over “scale”, where scale denotes the “chiral symmetry breaking scale” which is about 1 GeV. This scheme is known as chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) and allows to calculate the various terms that make up the nuclear potential systematically power by power, or order by order.
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