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.
The neutron-matter equation of state constrains the properties of many
physical systems over a wide density range and can be studied systematically
using chiral effective field theory (EFT). In chiral EFT, all many-body forces
among neutrons are predicted to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO).
We present details and additional results of the first complete N3LO
calculation of the neutron-matter energy, which includes the subleading
three-nucleon as well as the leading four-nucleon forces, and provides
theoretical uncertainties. In addition, we discuss the impact of our results
for astrophysics: for the supernova equation of state, the symmetry energy and
its density derivative, and for the structure of neutron stars. Finally, we
give a first estimate for the size of the N3LO many-body contributions to the
energy of symmetric nuclear matter, which shows that their inclusion will be
important in nuclear structure calculations.Comment: published version; 21 pages, 11 figures, 5 table
We present solutions of the BCS gap equation in the channels 1 S0 and 3 P2− 3 F2 in neutron matter based on nuclear interactions derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). Our studies are based on a representative set of nonlocal nucleon-nucleon (NN) plus three-nucleon (3N) interactions up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N 3 LO) as well as local and semilocal chiral NN interactions up to N 2 LO and N 4 LO, respectively. In particular, we investigate for the first time the impact of subleading 3N forces at N 3 LO on pairing gaps and also derive uncertainty estimates by taking into account results for pairing gaps at different orders in the chiral expansion. Finally, we discuss different methods for obtaining self-consistent solutions of the gap equation. Besides the widely-used quasi-linear method by Khodel et al. we demonstrate that the modified Broyden method is well applicable and exhibits a robust convergence behavior. In contrast to Khodel's method it is based on a direct iteration of the gap equation without imposing an auxiliary potential and is straightforward to implement.
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