Modern Theories of Nuclear Forces and their Applications in <i>ab initio </i>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.