Subleading contributions to the nuclear scalar isoscalar currents

Abstract

We extend our recent analyses of the nuclear vector, axial-vector and pseudoscalar currents and derive the leading one-loop corrections to the two-nucleon scalar current operator in the framework of chiral effective field theory using the method of unitary transformation. We also show that the scalar current operators at zero momentum transfer are directly related to the quark mass dependence of the nuclear forces.

Comments: 14 pages, 6 figures