Dirac-Brueckner-Hartree-Fock versus chiral effective field theory

TL;DR

This paper compares two ab initio methods—meson-theoretic Brueckner-Hartree-Fock and chiral effective field theory—for predicting nuclear and neutron matter, finding very similar results and highlighting key physical features.

Contribution

It provides a direct comparison between two prominent nuclear matter theories, demonstrating their close agreement and reinforcing their validity in nuclear physics.

Findings

Results from both approaches are very close.

Both methods capture essential features of nuclear matter.

The approaches are consistent in their predictions.

Abstract

We compare nuclear and neutron matter predictions based on two different ab initio approaches to nuclear forces and the nuclear many-body problem. The first consists of a realistic meson-theoretic nucleon-nucleon potential together with the relativistic counterpart of the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock theory of nuclear matter. The second is based on chiral effective field theory, with density-dependent interactions derived from leading order chiral three-nucleon forces. We find the results to be very close and conclude that both approaches contain important features governing the physics of nuclear and neutron matter.