Renormalizability of leading order covariant chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction *

Abstract

Abstract In this work, we study the renormalization group invariance of the recently proposed covariant power counting in the case of nucleon-nucleon scattering [Chin. Phys. C 42 (2018) 014103] at leading order. We show that unlike the Weinberg scheme, renormalizaion group invariance is satisfied in the channel. Another interesting feature is that the and channels are correlated. Fixing the relevant low energy constants by fitting to the phase shifts at and 25 MeV with cutoff values MeV, one can describe the phase shifts relatively well. In the limit of , the phase shifts become cutoff-independent, whereas the phase shifts do not. This is consistent with the Wigner bound and previous observations that the channel is best treated perturbatively. As for the and - channels, renormalization group invariance is satisfied.