Effective Field Theory in Nuclear Physics

Effective field theories are the most general tool for the description of low energy phenomena. They are universal and systematic: they can be formulated for any low energy systems we can think of and offer a clear guide on how to calculate predictions with reliable error estimates, a feature that is called power counting. These properties can be easily understood in Wilsonian renormalization, in which effective field theories are the low energy renormalization group evolutio...

A review is presented of the development and current status of nuclear shell-model calculations in which the two-body effective interaction is derived from the free nucleon-nucleon potential. The significant progress made in this field within the last decade is emphasized, in particular as regards the so-called V-low-k approach to the renormalization of the bare nucleon-nucleon interaction. In the last part of the review we first give a survey of realistic shell-model calcula...

Progress in the Effective Field Theory of two and three nucleon systems is sketched, concentrating on the low energy version in which pions are integrated out as explicit degrees of freedom. Examples given are calculations of deuteron Compton scattering, three body forces and the triton, and nd partial waves.

The last decade has witnessed both quantitative and qualitative progresses in Shell Model studies, which have resulted in remarkable gains in our understanding of the structure of the nucleus. Indeed, it is now possible to diagonalize matrices in determinantal spaces of dimensionality up to 10^9 using the Lanczos tridiagonal construction, whose formal and numerical aspects we will analyze. Besides, many new approximation methods have been developed in order to overcome the di...

The nuclear shell model has been perhaps the most important conceptual and computational paradigm for the understanding of the structure of atomic nuclei. While the shell model has been predominantly used in a phenomenological context, there have been efforts stretching back over a half century to derive shell model parameters based on a realistic interaction between nucleons. More recently, several ab initio many-body methods---in particular many-body perturbation theory, th...

These lectures are a pedagogical -- not comprehensive -- introduction to the applications of effective field theory in the context of nuclear and atomic physics. A common feature of these applications is the interplay between nonperturbative physics (needed at leading order to produce nonrelativistic bound states and resonances) and controlled perturbative corrections (crucial for predictive power). The essential ideas are illustrated with the simplest nuclear EFT, Pionless E...

Recent progress in Lorentz-covariant quantum field theories of the nuclear many-body problem (quantum hadrodynamics, or QHD) is discussed. The importance of modern perspectives in effective field theory and density functional theory for understanding the successes of QHD is emphasized. To appear in: 150 Years of Quantum Many-Body Theory: A conference in honour of the 65th birthdays of John W. Clark, Alpo J. Kallio, Manfred L. Ristig, and Sergio Rosati.

An introduction to methods of effective field theory is given. Examples are presented, including Rayleigh scattering from nonrelativistic quantum mechnics, chiral perturbation theory/QCD as well as electromagnetic and weak interactions of nucleons.

Three-nucleon interactions are a frontier in understanding and predicting the structure of strongly-interacting matter in laboratory nuclei and in the cosmos. We present results and discuss the status of first calculations with microscopic three-nucleon interactions beyond light nuclei. This coherent effort is possible due to advances based on effective field theory and renormalization group methods in nuclear physics.

The current generation of covariant mean-field models has had many successes in calculations of bulk observables for medium to heavy nuclei, but there remain many open questions. New challenges are confronted when trying to systematically extend these models to reliably address nuclear structure physics away from the line of stability. In this lecture, we discuss a framework for the next generation of relativistic models that can address these questions and challenges. We int...