The Soft R\'egime and \beta Function of NRQCD

Progress towards a complete velocity power counting in non-relativistic effective field theories, especially NRQCD, is motivated and summarised.Comment: 6 pages LaTeX2e, uses feynmp to generate 5 drawings in 1 figure and 1 table. Necessary metapost-files included. Talk presented at the ``Euroconference QCD '98'' in Montpellier, France, 2nd -- 8th July 1998 (to appear in Nucl. Phys. B (Proc. Suppl.)), and at the conference ``Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum III'' at TJNL, Newport News, USA, 8th -- 12th June 1998 (to be published in the proceedings

Nucleon Polarisabilities from Compton Scattering off the One- and Few-Nucleon System

These proceedings sketch how combining recent theoretical advances with data from the new generation of high-precision Compton scattering experiments on both the proton and few-nucleon systems offers fresh, detailed insight into the Physics of the nucleon polarisabilities. A multipole-analysis is presented to simplify their interpretation. Predictions from Chiral Effective Field Theory with special emphasis on the spin-polarisabilities can serve as guideline for doubly-polarised experiments below 300 MeV. The strong energy-dependence of the scalar magnetic dipole-polarisability $\beta_{M1}$ turns out to be crucial to understand the proton and deuteron data. Finally, a high-accuracy determination of the proton and neutron polarisabilities shows that they are identical within error-bars. For details and a better list of references, consult the given references.Comment: 10 pages LaTeX2e with 7 figures in 8 .eps files, using graphicx. Invited seminar given at the 26th Course of the International School of Nuclear Physics: Lepton Scattering and the Structure of Hadrons and Nuclei, Erice (Italy), 16th - 24th September 2004. To be published in Prog. Nucl. Part. Phys. 54, No. 2 as part of the proceeding

How To Classify 3-Body Forces -- And Why

For systems with only short-range forces and shallow 2-body bound states, the typical strength of any 3-body force in all partial-waves, including external currents, is systematically estimated by renormalisation-group arguments in the Effective Field Theory of Point-Like Interactions. The underlying principle and some consequences in particular in Nuclear Physics are discussed.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX2e using FBSart-class (provided); 2 figures in 3 .eps files included using graphicx; to appear in Few-Body System

Compton scattering from the proton in an effective field theory with explicit Delta degrees of freedom

We analyse the proton Compton-scattering differential cross section for photon energies up to 325 MeV using Chiral Effective Field Theory and extract new values for the electric and magnetic polarisabilities of the proton. Our EFT treatment builds in the key physics in two different regimes: photon energies around the pion mass ("low energy") and the higher energies where the Delta(1232) resonance plays a key role. The Compton amplitude is complete at N4L0, O(e^2 delta^4), in the low-energy region, and at NLO, O(e^2 delta^0), in the resonance region. Throughout, the Delta-pole graphs are dressed with pi-N loops and gamma-N-Delta vertex corrections. A statistically consistent database of proton Compton experiments is used to constrain the free parameters in our amplitude: the M1 gamma-N-Delta transition strength b_1 (which is fixed in the resonance region) and the polarisabilities alpha and beta (which are fixed from data below 170 MeV). In order to obtain a reasonable fit we find it necessary to add the spin polarisability gammaM1 as a free parameter, even though it is, strictly speaking, predicted in chiral EFT at the order to which we work. We show that the fit is consistent with the Baldin sum rule, and then use that sum rule to constrain alpha+beta. In this way we obtain alpha=[10.65+/-0.35(stat})+/-0.2(Baldin)+/-0.3(theory)]10^{-4} fm^3, and beta =[3.15-/+0.35(stat)-/+0.2(Baldin)-/+0.3(theory)]10^{-4} fm^3, with chi^2 = 113.2 for 135 degrees of freedom. A detailed rationale for the theoretical uncertainties assigned to this result is provided.Comment: 36 pages, 15 figures Version 2 is shortened for publication; version 1 is more self-contained. Results section unchange

On Parity-Violating Three-Nucleon Interactions and the Predictive Power of Few-Nucleon EFT at Very Low Energies

We address the typical strengths of hadronic parity-violating three-nucleon interactions in "pion-less" Effective Field Theory in the nucleon-deuteron (iso-doublet) system. By analysing the superficial degree of divergence of loop diagrams, we conclude that no such interactions are needed at leading order. The only two linearly independent parity-violating three-nucleon structures with one derivative mix two-S and two-P-half waves with iso-spin transitions Delta I = 0 or 1. Due to their structure, they cannot absorb any divergence ostensibly appearing at next-to-leading order. This observation is based on the approximate realisation of Wigner's combined SU(4) spin-isospin symmetry in the two-nucleon system, even when effective-range corrections are included. Parity-violating three-nucleon interactions thus only appear beyond next-to-leading order. This guarantees renormalisability of the theory to that order without introducing new, unknown coupling constants and allows the direct extraction of parity-violating two-nucleon interactions from three-nucleon experiments.Comment: 20 pages LaTeX2e, including 9 figures as .eps file embedded with includegraphicx. Minor modifications and stylistic corrections. Version accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.

Nuclear Physics Around the Unitarity Limit

We argue that many features of the structure of nuclei emerge from a strictly perturbative expansion around the unitarity limit, where the two-nucleon S waves have bound states at zero energy. In this limit, the gross features of states in the nuclear chart are correlated to only one dimensionful parameter, which is related to the breaking of scale invariance to a discrete scaling symmetry and set by the triton binding energy. Observables are moved to their physical values by small, perturbative corrections, much like in descriptions of the fine structure of atomic spectra. We provide evidence in favor of the conjecture that light, and possibly heavier, nuclei are bound weakly enough to be insensitive to the details of the interactions but strongly enough to be insensitive to the exact size of the two-nucleon system.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, published version, rewritten for clarit

Spin Polarizabilities of the Nucleon from Polarized Low Energy Compton Scattering

As guideline for forthcoming experiments, we present predictions from Chiral Effective Field Theory for polarized cross sections in low energy Compton scattering for photon energies below 170 MeV, both on the proton and on the neutron. Special interest is put on the role of the nucleon spin polarizabilities which can be examined especially well in polarized Compton scattering. We present a model-independent way to extract their energy dependence and static values from experiment, interpreting our findings also in terms of the low energy effective degrees of freedom inside the nucleon: The polarizabilities are dominated by chiral dynamics from the pion cloud, except for resonant multipoles, where contributions of the Delta(1232) resonance turn out to be crucial. We therefore include it as an explicit degree of freedom. We also identify some experimental settings which are particularly sensitive to the spin polarizabilities.Comment: 30 pages, 19 figure

Naive Dimensional Analysis for Three-Body Forces Without Pions

For systems of three identical particles in which short-range forces produce shallow two-particle bound states, and in particular for the ``pion-less'' Effective Field Theory of Nuclear Physics, I extend and systematise the power-counting of three-body forces to all partial-waves and orders, including external currents. With low-energy observables independent of the details of short-distance dynamics, the typical strength of a three-body force is determined from the superficial degree of divergence of the three-body diagrams which contain only two-body forces. This na\"ive dimensional analysis must be amended as the asymptotic solution to the leading-order Faddeev equation depends for large off-shell momenta crucially on the partial wave and spin-combination of the system. It is shown by analytic construction to be weaker in most channels with angular momentum smaller than 3 than expected. This demotes many three-nucleon forces to high orders. Observables like the quartet-S-scattering length are less sensitive to three-nucleon forces than guessed. I also comment on the Efimov effect and limit-cycle for non-zero angular momentum.Comment: 31 pages LaTeX2e, including 8 figures in 13 .eps files, embedded with includegraphicx; linguistic corrections only, version to appear in Nucl Phys