Nuclear Forces from Chiral Effective Field Theory: Achievements and Challenges

Abstract

In the past decade, there has been substantial progress in the derivation of nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory. Accurate two-nucleon forces have been constructed at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) and applied (together with three-nucleon forces at NNLO) to nuclear few- and many-body systems—with a good deal of success. This may suggest that the 80-year old nuclear force problem has finally been cracked. Not so! Some pretty basic issues are still unresolved. In this talk, I focus on the two most pressing ones, namely, the proper renormalization of the two-nucleon potential and subleading many-body forces.