Revision 1

Accepted · first revision · record

Title: Simultaneous binding energies and charge radii of medium-mass nuclei
Plain: First-principles calculations with many common nuclear forces either bind medium-mass nuclei correctly but make them too small, or get the size right and the binding wrong. The cause is thought to lie in the three-nucleon force (a force that acts only when three nucleons are close together).
Precise: With NN plus 3N interactions from chiral EFT fitted only to few-body data ($A \le 4$, optionally nuclear-matter saturation), predict ground-state energies and charge radii of 16O, 40Ca, 48Ca and 208Pb within 1 percent, and saturation of symmetric nuclear matter ($n_0$ about $0.16\ \mathrm{fm}^{-3}$, $E/A$ about $-16\ \mathrm{MeV}$). Answer: an interaction with quantified truncation errors meeting these targets, and identification of the 3N terms that control saturation.
Settled by: Ab initio calculations with Bayesian uncertainty quantification reproducing binding and radii from 4He to 208Pb using interactions fixed in few-body systems.
Kind: phenomenon
Answer type: mechanism
References: (empty)
Literature status: partially-resolved
Status note: $\Delta$-full chiral interactions fitted to light-nucleus and nuclear-matter data (Jiang et al., 2020) improved radii and binding together, but predictions remained sensitive to the fit protocol as of 2026.
Posed since: (empty)