A renormalizable theory for not-so-light nuclei

2025/05/14 by Lorenzo Contessi, M. Schäfer, Contessi, L. +7 · 5 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Nuclear Theory (nucl-th) #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #Quantum, superfluid, helium dynamics

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.09299

openalex publication_date 2025/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

We present an improved action for Pionless Effective Field Theory (EFT). Previous formulations of renormalizable nuclear EFTs have encountered instabilities in systems with more than four nucleons. We resolve this issue by introducing a finite interaction range at leading order, which is compensated for in perturbation theory at next-to-leading order. Calculated ground-state energies of ⁴He, ⁶Li, ¹²C, and ¹⁶O converge and agree with experiment within theoretical uncertainties. This first successful implementation of systematic renormalizability beyond the lightest nuclei enables not only applications to larger nuclei but also extensions to other EFTs in the strong-coupling regime.

Cited by

• Improved Actions for Nuclear Effective Field Theories
• Small clusters of He atoms in finite-cutoff EFT
• A practical approach to perturbative corrections to few-body observables
• Few-Nucleon Systems within Finite-Cutoff Pionless EFT
• Observation of renormalization group invariance in symmetry-restored nuclear lattice effective field theory

Related

• The Problem of Renormalization of Chiral Nuclear Forces
• Improved Actions for Nuclear Effective Field Theories
• Renormalization of many-body effective field theory
• Les Houches Lectures on Effective Field Theories for Nuclear and (some) Atomic Physics
• Criteria of Renormalizability in Effective Field Theories