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.