Uses of Effective Field Theory in Lattice QCD

Understanding the properties of atomic nuclei and nuclear dynamics from QCD remains a major challenge. Complementary to first attempts along these lines based on lattice QCD, an effective field theory approach has been developed in the past two decades and applied to a variety of nuclear bound states and reactions. I outline the foundations of this method, review selected applications and address some open challenges in this field.

We review how nuclear forces emerge from low-energy QCD via chiral effective field theory. The presentation is accessible to the non-specialist. At the same time, we also provide considerable detailed information (mostly in appendices) for the benefit of researchers who wish to start working in this field.

I review basic concepts of chiral effective field theories guided by an historical perspective: from the first ideas to the merging with other effective frameworks, and to the interplay with lattice field theory. The impact of recent theoretical developments on phenomenological predictions is reviewed with attention for rare decays, and charm physics. I conclude with a critical look at future applications.

Lectures given at the Summer School on "Modern perspectives in lattice QCD", Les Houches, August 3-28, 2009

The emergence of complex macroscopic phenomena from a small set of parameters and microscopic concepts demonstrates the power and beauty of physical theories. A theory which relates the wealth of data and peculiarities found in nuclei to the small number of parameters and symmetries of quantum chromodynamics is by that standard of exceptional beauty. Decade-long research on computational physics and on effective field theories facilitate the assessment of the presumption th...

Recent developments for an effective theory for non-relativistic perturbative quark-antiquark systems are reviewed and some applications are discussed.

I give a brief introduction to lattice QCD for non-specialists.

These are the proceedings of the international workshop on "Nuclear Dynamics with Effective Field Theories" held at Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum, Germany from July 1 to 3, 2013. The workshop focused on effective field theories of low-energy QCD, chiral perturbation theory for nuclear forces as well as few- and many-body physics. Included are a short contribution per talk.

Effective Quantum Field Theories and QCD Lattice methods have become more and more complementary and mutually supportive in the study of Hard Probes. I present some of the progress that this alliance already delivered and I discuss future opportunities.

This review concentrates on progress in lattice QCD during the last two years and, particularly, its impact on phenomenology. The two main technical developments have been successful implementations of lattice actions with exact chiral symmetry, and results from simulations with two light dynamical flavours which provide quantitative estimates of quenching effects for some quantities. Results are presented for the hadron spectrum, quark masses, heavy-quark decays and structur...