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

Phys Rev Lett. 2013 Jan 18;110(3):032504. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.032504. Epub 2013 Jan 15.

Abstract

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