Structure of p-shell nuclei with two- plus three-nucleon interactions from chiral effective field theory

Properties of finite nuclei are evaluated with two-nucleon (NN) and three-nucleon (NNN) interactions derived within chiral effective field theory (EFT). The nuclear Hamiltonian is fixed by properties of the $A=2$ system, except for two low-energy constants (LECs) that parameterize the short range NNN interaction. We constrain those two LECs by a fit to the $A=3$ system binding energy and investigate sensitivity of $^4$He, $^6$Li, $^{10,11}$B and $^{12,13}$C properties to the variation of the constrained LECs. We identify a preferred choice that gives globally the best description. We demonstrate that the NNN interaction terms significantly improve the binding energies and spectra of mid-$p$-shell nuclei not just with the preferred choice of the LECs but even within a wide range of the constrained LECs. At the same time, we find that a very high quality description of these nuclei requires further improvements to the chiral Hamiltonian.