Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS)

Theory of the Strong Interactions (IAS-4 / IKP-3)

Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory

Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory is a new tool for simulations of structure and dynamics of atomic nuclei.

Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory (NLEFT) is a new computaional tool for nuclear physics developed at IKP-3/IAS-4. It combines the succesful EFT for few-nucleon systems with Monte Carlo methods to provide ab initio calculations of nuclear spectra and reactions. Groundbreaking works have been the first ab initio calculation of the Hoyle state in 12C and of alpha-alpha scattering. NLEFT has been used to understand the phenomenon of alpha-clustering in light and medium phase nuclei and it was used to show that the physics of nuclear binding is related to a zero-temperature quantum phase transition. Presently, the method is extended in precision (N3LO) and further developed to investigate the phase diagram of nuclear matter around the liguid-gas transition as well as the physics of hypernuclei.

Further reading: T.A. Lähde and U.-G. Meißner, "Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory: An introduction," Lect. Notes Phys. 957 (2019), doi:10.1007/978-3-030-14189-9