Chiral EFT based nuclear forces: Achievements and challenges

Abstract: During the past two decades, chiral effective field theory has become a popular tool to derive nuclear forces from first principles. Two-nucleon interactions have been worked out up to sixth order of chiral perturbation theory and three-nucleon forces up to fifth order. Applications of some of these forces have been conducted in nuclear few- and many-body systems---with a certain degree of success. But in spite of these achievements, we are still faced with great challenges. Among them is the issue of a proper uncertainty quantification of predictions obtained when applying these forces in {\it ab initio} calculations of nuclear structure and reactions. A related problem is the order by order convergence of the chiral expansion. We start this review with a pedagogical introduction and then present the current status of the field of chiral nuclear forces. This is followed by a discussion of representative examples for the application of chiral two- and three-body forces in the nuclear many-body system including convergence issues.