Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations of Light Nuclei Using Chiral Potentials

Understand

We present the first Green's function Monte Carlo calculations of light nuclei with nuclear interactions derived from chiral effective field theory up to next-to-next-to-leading order.

• Up to this order, the interactions can be constructed in a local form and are therefore amenable to quantum Monte Carlo calculations.
• We demonstrate a systematic improvement with each order for the binding energies of $A=3$ and $A=4$ systems.
• We also carry out the first few-body tests to study perturbative expansions of chiral potentials at different orders, finding that higher-order corrections are more perturbative for softer interactions.