Approaching nuclear interactions with lattice QCD

TL;DR

This paper uses lattice QCD to study nuclear interactions from first principles, focusing on two-baryon systems with various strangeness levels and constraining effective field theory coefficients.

Contribution

It applies lattice QCD to compute baryon interactions at low energies and constrains effective field theory parameters, advancing understanding of nuclear forces from fundamental theory.

Findings

Computed two-baryon interactions with strangeness from 0 to -4.

Constrained low-energy coefficients in pionless effective field theory.

Analyzed SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking effects.

Abstract

Nuclei make up the majority of the visible matter in the Universe; obtaining a first principles description of the nuclear properties and interactions between nuclei directly from the underlying theory of the strong interaction, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), is one of the main goals of the nuclear physics community. Although the theory was established nearly fifty years ago, the complexities of QCD at low energies precludes analytical solutions of the simplest hadronic systems, let alone the features of the nuclear forces. In this thesis we follow the lattice QCD approach, according to which QCD is solved non-perturbatively in a discretized space-time via large-scale numerical calculations. Specifically, the interactions between two octet baryons, with strangeness ranging from 0 to -4, are studied at low energies with larger-than-physical quark masses, and the low-energy coefficients in pionless effective field thepry relevant for two-baryon interactions, including those responsible for SU(3) flavor-symmetry breaking, are constrained.