Effective Field Theory For Nuclei: Confronting Fundamental Questions in Astrophysics

Abstract

Fundamental issues involving nuclei in the celebrated solar neutrino problem are discussed in terms of an effective field theory adapted to nuclear few-body systems, with a focus on the proton fusion process and the hep process. Our strategy in addressing these questions is to combine chiral perturbation theory -- an effective field theory of QCD -- with an accurate nuclear physics approach to arrive at a more effective effective field theory that reveals and exploits a subtle role of the chiral-symmetry scale in short-distance effects encoded in short-range nuclear correlations. Our key argument is drawn from the close analogy of the principal weak matrix element figuring in the hep process to the suppressed matrix elements in the polarized neutron-proton capture at threshold currently being measured in the laboratories.

11 pages. Invited talk given by MR at the International Conference on Few-Body Problems, Taipei, Taiwan, 6-10 March 2000

Cited by in corpus (20)

• Parameter-free effective field theory calculation for the solar proton-fusion and hep processes
• Variation of Fundamental Couplings and Nuclear Forces
• Neutrino-deuteron reactions at solar neutrino energies
• Proton-proton fusion and tritium $\beta$-decay from lattice quantum chromodynamics
• Up-to N${}^3$LO heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory calculation for the M1 properties of three-nucleon systems
• Solar-neutrino reactions on deuteron in effective field theory
• Building light nuclei from neutrons, protons, and pions
• Family of Hermitian Low-Momentum Nucleon Interactions with Phase Shift Equivalence
• Partially-Quenched Nucleon-Nucleon Scattering
• Effective field theory approach for the M1 properties of A=2 and 3 nuclei
• Charge Symmetry Breaking in the n p --> d pi^0 reaction
• Counter Terms for Low Momentum Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions
• Neutrino-deuteron reactions at solar neutrino energies
• Magnetic moments of $A=3$ nuclei with chiral effective field theory operators
• Weak axial nuclear heavy meson exchange currents and interactions of solar neutrinos with deuterons
• Impulse approximation in the n p --> d pi^0 reaction reexamined
• The "Folk Theorem" on Effective Field Theory: How Does It Fare in Nuclear Physics?
• Challenges in Hadron Physics
• Neutrino-nucleus reactions in the energy range 1-100 MeV
• EFT for electroweak processes of light nuclei