Nuclear Forces from Effective Field Theory

Chiral effective field theory allows for a systematic and model-independent derivation of the forces between nucleons in harmony with the symmetries of the quantum chromodynamics. After a brief review on the current status in the development of the chiral nuclear forces I will focus on the role of the ??-resonance contributions in the nuclear dynamics. We find improvement in the convergence of the chiral expansion of the nuclear forces if we explicitly take into account the ??-resonance degrees of freedom. The overall results for two-nucleon forces with and without explicit ??-resonance degrees of freedom are remarkably similar.