Neutron matter at next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory

Abstract

Neutron matter presents a unique system for chiral effective field theory (EFT), because all many-body forces among neutrons are predicted to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO). We present the first complete N3LO calculation of the neutron matter energy. This includes the subleading three-nucleon (3N) forces for the first time and all leading four-nucleon (4N) forces. We find relatively large contributions from N3LO 3N forces. Our results provide constraints for neutron-rich matter in astrophysics with controlled theoretical uncertainties.

5 pages, 4 figures; improved version, 3N ring and 2pi-contact contributions corrected, conclusions unchanged; v3: minor changes, published version