What is ab initio?

Abstract

Microscopic nuclear theory is based on the tenet that atomic nuclei can be accurately described as collections of point-like nucleons interacting via two- and many-body forces obeying nonrelativistic quantum mechanics -- and the concept of the ab initio approach is to calculate nuclei accordingly. The forces are fixed in free-space scattering and must be accurate. We will critically review the history of this approach from the early beginnings until today. An analysis of current ab initio calculations reveals that some mistakes of history are being repeated today. The ultimate goal of nuclear theory are high-precision ab initio calculations which, as it turns out, may be possible only at the fifths order of the chiral expansion. Thus, for its fulfillment, nuclear theory is still facing an enormous task.

arXiv comment14 pages, 5 figures

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Wavefunction matching for solving quantum many-body problems
• A Bayesian mixture model approach to quantifying the empirical nuclear saturation point
• Saturation of nuclear matter in the relativistic Brueckner Hatree-Fock approach with a leading order covariant chiral nuclear force
• Sign-Problem-Free Nuclear Quantum Monte Carlo Simulation
• A further study on the renormalization group aspect of perturbative corrections
• Reexamination of antinucleon-nucleon interactions in covariant chiral effective field theory
• In-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections from relativistic ab initio calculations
• Charge dependent nucleon-nucleon potentials in covariant chiral effective field theory
• Dimensionality reduction through tensor factorization : application to \textit{ab initio} nuclear physics calculations