Radiative Corrections and the Renormalization Group for the Two-Nucleon Interaction in Effective Field Theory

Abstract

We use a combination of effective field theory and the renormalization group to determine the impact of radiative corrections on the nucleon-nucleon potential and the binding energy of the deuteron. In order to do so, we present a modified version of pionless effective field theory inspired by earlier work in nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics. The renormalization group improvement of the deuteron binding energy leads to a shift on the order of a few percent and is consistent with the experimental value. This work serves as a starting point for a dedicated study of radiative corrections in few-body systems relevant for precision tests of the Standard Model in an effective field theory framework.