Modern Theories of Nuclear Forces and their Applications in ab initio Nuclear Structure

During the past two decades, chiral effective field theory has evolved into the authoritative approach to derive nuclear two- and many-body forces in a systematic and model-independent way. Nowadays, most ab initio calculations of nuclear structure and reactions are conducted with chiral forces. I will summarize the state of the art in the construction of high-quality chiral nuclear forces. Moreover, I will discuss the application of these forces in ab initio calculations of few-nucleon reactions and the structure of light and intermediate-mass nuclei. The order-by-order convergence of the theory will also be investigated.