Short-range nuclear forces in singlet channels

Abstract: Continuing our effort to build a consistent power counting for chiral nuclear effective field theory (EFT), we discuss the subleading contact interactions, or counterterms, in the singlet channels of nucleon-nucleon scattering, with renormalization group invariance as the constraint. We argue that the rather large cutoff error of the leading amplitude requires O(Q) of the EFT expansion to be nonvanishing, contrary to Weinberg's original power counting. This, together with the ultraviolet divergences of two-pion exchanges in the distorted-wave expansion, leads to enhancement of the 1S0 counterterms and results in a pionless-theory-like power counting for the singlet channels.