https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2009-10755-0
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
Ground-state energy of dilute neutron matter at next-to-leading order in lattice chiral effective field theory
1
Institut für Kernphysik (IKP-3) and Jülich Center for Hadron Physics, Forschungszentrum Jülich, D-52425, Jülich, Germany
2
Helmholtz-Institut für Strahlen- und Kernphysik (Theorie) and Bethe Center for Theoretical Physics, Universität Bonn, D-53115, Bonn, Germany
3
Department of Physics, North Carolina State University, 27695, Raleigh, NC, USA
* e-mail: dean_lee@ncsu.edu
Received:
19
January
2009
Accepted:
16
March
2009
Published online:
18
April
2009
We present lattice calculations for the ground-state energy of dilute neutron matter at next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory. This study follows a series of recent papers on low-energy nuclear physics using chiral effective field theory on the lattice. In this work we introduce an improved spin- and isospin-projected leading-order action which allows for a perturbative treatment of corrections at next-to-leading order and smaller estimated errors. Using auxiliary fields and Euclidean-time projection Monte Carlo, we compute the ground state of 8, 12, and 16 neutrons in a periodic cube, covering a density range from 2% to 10% of normal nuclear density.
PACS: 13.75.Cs Nucleon-nucleon interactions (including antinucleons, deuterons, etc.) – / 21.30.-x Nuclear forces – / 21.60.Ka Monte Carlo models – / 21.65.Cd Asymmetric matter, neutron matter –
© SIF, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2009
