Low-energy neutron-deuteron reactions with N3LO chiral forces

TL;DR

This paper solves three-nucleon Faddeev equations using chiral forces at N3LO to study low-energy neutron-deuteron reactions, addressing longstanding discrepancies between experimental data and theoretical predictions.

Contribution

It introduces a consistent chiral effective field theory approach at N3LO for three-nucleon forces in neutron-deuteron reactions, focusing on specific scattering observables.

Findings

Analysis of neutron-deuteron elastic scattering and breakup reactions.

Insights into the Ay puzzle and cross section discrepancies.

Application of chiral forces at N3LO in three-nucleon calculations.

Abstract

We solve three-nucleon Faddeev equations with nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon forces derived consistently in the framework of chiral perturbation theory at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. In this first investigation we include only matrix elements of the three-nucleon force for partial waves with the total two-nucleon (three-nucleon) angular momenta up to 3 (5/2). Low-energy neutron-deuteron elastic scattering and deuteron breakup reaction are studied. Emphasis is put on Ay puzzle in elastic scattering and cross sections in symmetric-space-star and neutron-neutron quasi-free-scattering breakup configurations, for which large discrepancies between data and theory have been reported.