Neutron and nuclear matter properties with chiral three-nucleon forces

Abstract

The equation of state of neutron and symmetric matter is calculated within the lowest order constrained variational (LOCV) method using the Argonne V18 (AV18) nucleon–nucleon interaction supplemented by the local, coordinate space versions of the chiral three-nucleon force (TNF) at next-to-next-to-leading order (N2LOL). We present the first results of studying the nuclear equation of state in the LOCV framework by employing a chiral TNF. It is shown that although some calculated values of saturation properties lie well in the empirically determined ranges, all of the saturation quantities can not be predicted simultaneously. We also study other possible parametrizations of the N2LOL TNF by fitting the low-energy constants (LECs) to nuclear saturation point. It is found that by employing the proposed sets of LECs, LOCV method is able to successfully produce the equilibrium properties of symmetric nuclear matter.