Two and three nucleons in a trap, and the continuum limit

Journal article, 2012

We describe systems of two and three nucleons trapped in a harmonic-oscillator potential with interactions from the pionless effective field theory up to next-to-leading order (NLO). We construct the two-nucleon interaction using two-nucleon scattering information. We calculate the trapped levels in the three-nucleon system with isospin T = 1/2 and determine the three-nucleon force needed for stability of the triton. We extract neutron-deuteron phase shifts, and show that the quartet scattering length is in good agreement with experimental data.