Rigorous constraints on three-nucleon forces in chiral effective field theory from fast and accurate calculations of few-body observables

TL;DR

This paper uses advanced statistical and computational methods to constrain three-nucleon forces in chiral effective field theory by analyzing few-body observables with rigorous error quantification.

Contribution

It introduces a statistically rigorous framework incorporating multiple uncertainties and employs eigenvector continuation for efficient calculations in constraining 3NF parameters.

Findings

Determines a chiral EFT expansion parameter of Q=0.33 ± 0.06.

Provides degenerate constraints on 3NF low-energy constants from multiple observables.

Demonstrates the importance of including EFT truncation errors in analysis.

Abstract

We explore the constraints on the three-nucleon force (3NF) of chiral effective field theory ($\chi$EFT) that are provided by bound-state observables in the $A=3$ and $A=4$ sectors. Our statistically rigorous analysis incorporates experimental error, computational method uncertainty, and the uncertainty due to truncation of the $\chi$EFT expansion at next-to-next-to-leading order. A consistent solution for the ${}^3$H binding energy, the ${}^4$He binding energy and radius, and the ${}^3$H $\beta$-decay rate can only be obtained if $\chi$EFT truncation errors are included in the analysis. All of these except the $\beta$-decay rate give essentially degenerate constraints on the 3NF low-energy constants, so it is crucial for estimating these parameters. We use eigenvector continuation for fast and accurate emulation of No-Core Shell Model calculations of the considered few-nucleon observables. This facilitates sampling of the posterior probability distribution, allowing us to also determine the distributions of the hyperparameters that quantify the truncation error. We find a $\chi$EFT expansion parameter of $Q=0.33 \pm 0.06$ for these observables.