The objectives of the present work are twofold. The first is to address and resolve some of the differences present in independent, chiral-effective-field-theory (χEFT) derivations up to one loop, recently appeared in the literature, of the nuclear charge and current operators. The second objective is to provide a complete set of χEFT predictions for the structure functions and tensor polarization of the deuteron, for the charge and magnetic form factors of 3 He and 3 H, and for the charge and magnetic radii of these few-nucleon systems. The calculations use wave functions derived from high-order chiral two-and three-nucleon potentials and Monte Carlo methods to evaluate the relevant matrix elements. Predictions based on conventional potentials in combination with χEFT charge and current operators are also presented. There is excellent agreement between theory and experiment for all these observables for momentum transfers up to q 2.0-2.5 fm −1 ; for a subset of them, this agreement extends to momentum transfers as high as q ≃ 5-6 fm −1 . A complete analysis of the results is provided.

We construct a coordinate-space chiral potential, including ∆-isobar intermediate states in its two-pion-exchange component up to order Q 3 (Q denotes generically the low momentum scale). The contact interactions entering at next-to-leading and next-to-next-to-next-to-leading orders (Q 2 and Q 4 , respectively) are rearranged by Fierz transformations to yield terms at most quadratic in the relative momentum operator of the two nucleons. The low-energy constants multiplying these contact interactions are fitted to the 2013 Granada database, consisting of 2309 pp and 2982 np data (including, respectively, 148 and 218 normalizations) in the laboratory-energy range 0-300 MeV. For the total 5291 pp and np data in this range, we obtain a χ 2 /datum of roughly 1.3 for a set of three models characterized by long-and short-range cutoffs, RL and RS respectively, ranging from (RL, RS) = (1.2, 0.8) fm down to (0.8, 0.6) fm. The long-range (short-range) cutoff regularizes the one-and two-pion exchange (contact) part of the potential.

We present fully local versions of the minimally non-local nucleon-nucleon potentials constructed in a previous paper [M. Piarulli et al., Phys. Rev. C 91, 024003 (2015)], and use them in hypersperical-harmonics and quantum Monte Carlo calculations of ground and excited states of 3 H, 3 He, 4 He, 6 He, and 6 Li nuclei. The long-range part of these local potentials includes oneand two-pion exchange contributions without and with ∆-isobars in the intermediate states up to order Q 3 (Q denotes generically the low momentum scale) in the chiral expansion, while the short-range part consists of contact interactions up to order Q 4 . The low-energy constants multiplying these contact interactions are fitted to the 2013 Granada database in two different ranges of laboratory energies, either 0-125 MeV or 0-200 MeV, and to the deuteron binding energy and nn singlet scattering length. Fits to these data are performed for three models characterized by long-and short-range cutoffs, R L and R S respectively, ranging from (R L , R S ) = (1.2, 0.8) fm down to (0.8, 0.6) fm. The long-range (short-range) cutoff regularizes the one-and two-pion exchange (contact) part of the potential.

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The process at the heart of neutrinoless double-beta decay, nn → pp e − e − induced by a light Majorana neutrino, is investigated in pionless and chiral effective field theory. We show in various regularization schemes the need to introduce a short-range lepton-numberviolating operator at leading order, confirming earlier findings. We demonstrate that such a short-range operator is only needed in spin-singlet S-wave transitions, while leading-order transitions involving higher partial waves depend solely on long-range currents. Calculations are extended to include next-to-leading corrections in perturbation theory, where to this order no additional undetermined parameters appear. We establish a connection based on chiral symmetry between neutrinoless double-beta decay and nuclear charge-independence breaking induced by electromagnetism. Data on the latter confirm the need for a leadingorder short-range operator, but do not allow for a full determination of the corresponding lepton-number-violating coupling. Using a crude estimate of this coupling, we perform ab initio calculations of the matrix elements for neutrinoless double-beta decay for 6 He and 12 Be. We speculate on the phenomenological impact of the leading short-range operator on the basis of these results.