Can chiral EFT give us satisfaction?

Abstract

We compare nuclear forces derived from chiral effective field theory (EFT) with those obtained from traditional (phenomenological and meson) models. By means of a careful analysis of paralleles and differences, we show that chiral EFT is superior to all earlier approaches in terms of both formal aspects and successful applications in ab initio calculations. However, in spite of the considerable progress made possible by chiral EFT, complete satisfaction cannot be claimed until outstanding problems – the renormalization issue being the most important one – are finally settled.