Chiral Three-Nucleon Interactions in Light Nuclei, Neutron-<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><mml:mi>α</mml:mi></mml:math>Scattering, and Neutron Matter

Abstract

We present quantum Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei, neutron-α scattering, and neutron matter using local two- and three-nucleon (3N) interactions derived from chiral effective field theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order (N(2)LO). The two undetermined 3N low-energy couplings are fit to the (4)He binding energy and, for the first time, to the spin-orbit splitting in the neutron-α P-wave phase shifts. Furthermore, we investigate different choices of local 3N-operator structures and find that chiral interactions at N(2)LO are able to simultaneously reproduce the properties of A=3,4,5 systems and of neutron matter, in contrast to commonly used phenomenological 3N interactions.