2022 Impact factor 2.7
Hadrons and Nuclei
Eur. Phys. J. A 15, 543-563 (2002)
DOI: 10.1140/epja/i2002-10048-2

Few-nucleon systems with two-nucleon forces from chiral effective field theory

E. Epelbaum1, A. Nogga2, W. Glöckle1, H. Kamada3, U.-G. Meißner4 and H. Witala5

1  Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Institut für Theoretische Physik II, D-44870 Bochum, Germany
2  Department of Physics, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA
3  Department of Physics, Faculty of Engineering, Kyushu Institute of Technology, 1-1 Sensuicho, Tobata, Kitakyushu 804-8550, Japan
4  Forschungszentrum Jülich, Institut für Kernphysik (Theorie), D-52425 Jülich, Germany
5  Jagiellonian University, Institut of Physics, Reymonta 4, 30-059 Cracow, Poland

evgeni.epelbaum@tp2.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
anogga@physics.arizona.edu
walter.gloeckle@tp2.ruhr-uni-bochum.de
kamada@mns.kyutech.ac.jp
u.meissner@fz-juelich.de
witala@if.uj.edu.pl

(Received: 11 March 2002 / Published online: 10 December 2002)

Abstract
Nucleon-nucleon (NN) forces from chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) are applied to systems with two, three and four nucleons. At NNLO, we consider two versions of the chiral potential which differ in the strength of the two-pion exchange (TPE) but describe two nucleon observables equally well. The NNLO potential leads to unphysical deeply bound states in the low partial waves and effects of the 3N forces, which appear first at this order, are expected to be large. We provide arguments for a reduction of the TPE potential and introduce the NNLO* version of the NN forces. We calculate nd scattering observables as well as various properties of $\chem{{}^3H}$ and $\chem{{}^4H}$ with the NNLO* potential and find good agreement with the data and with predictions based upon the standard high-precision potentials. We find an improved description of the $\chem{{}^3H}$ and $\chem{{}^4H}$ binding energies.

PACS
21.45.+v - Few-body systems.
21.30.-x - Nuclear forces.
27.10.+h - $A \leq 5$ .
25.10.+s - Nuclear reactions involving few-nucleon systems.

© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2002