Recent Advances in the Theory of Nuclear Forces and its Impact on Microscopic Nuclear Structure

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent progress in the theory of nuclear forces using chiral effective field theory, highlighting its advantages, recent advances, and limitations in understanding microscopic nuclear structure.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent developments in ChEFT-based nuclear force theory and critically evaluates its progress and limitations.

Findings

ChEFT enables quantitative calculations of nuclear forces.

It explains the hierarchy of 2NF, 3NF, and 4NF.

Recent advances have improved the understanding of microscopic nuclear structure.

Abstract

The theory of nuclear forces has made great progress since the turn of the millenium using the framework of chiral effective field theory (ChEFT). The advantage of this approach, which was originally proposed by Weinberg, is that it has a firm basis in quantum-chromodynamics and allows for quantitative calculations. Moreover, this theory generates two-nucleon forces (2NF) and many-body forces on an equal footing and provides an explanation for the empirically known fact that 2NF >> 3NF >> 4NF. I will present the recent advances in more detail and put them into historical context. In addition, I will also provide a critical evaluation of the progress made including a discussion of the limitations of the ChEFT approach.