Making predictions using ?EFT
Abstract: In this thesis we explore the merits of chiral effective field theory (?EFT) as a model for low-energy nuclear physics. ?EFT is an effective field theory based on quantum chromo dynamics (QCD) describing low-energy interactions of nucleons and pions. We estimate the inherent uncertainties of ?EFT and the accompanying methods used to compute observables in order to test the predictive power of the model. We use experimental pion-nucleon, nucleon- nucleon and few-nucleon data to perform a simultaneous fit of the low-energy constants in ?EFT. This results in small statistical uncertainties in the model. The results show a clear order-by-order improvement of ?EFT with the systematical model error dominating the total error budget.
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