Probing the nuclear force with rare isotopes

Understanding the nuclear force from the fundamental theory of QCD had been enabled by the chiral effective field theory. The importance of the three-nucleon force has emerged from reconciling observed fundamental properties of nuclei with the predictions. However, there are different prescriptions of the chiral interactions that need to be constrained with experiments.

We will present examples from recent reaction spectroscopy studies at TRIUMF accessing rare isotopes at the drip-lines to show how observables such as excitation spectra and diffraction pattern in nuclear scattering unfold new understanding of the two- and three-nucleon forces and challenges our current knowledge.