TY - JOUR AU - Epelbaum, E. AU - Hammer, H.-W. AU - Meissner, U.G. TI - Modern theory of nuclear forces JO - Reviews of modern physics VL - 81 SN - 0034-6861 CY - College Park, Md. PB - APS M1 - PreJuSER-8535 SP - 1773 - 1825 PY - 2009 N1 - We thank all our collaborators for sharing their insights into the topics discussed here. The work of E. E. was supported in parts by funds provided from the Helmholtz Association to the young investigator group "Few-Nucleon Systems in Chiral Effective Field Theory" ( Grant No. VH-NG-222). This work was further supported by the BMBF under Contract No. 06BN411, by the DFG (Grant No. SFB/TR 16 "Subnuclear Structure of Matter"), by the Helmholtz Association through funds provided to the virtual institute "Spin and strong QCD" (VH-VI-231), and by the European Community-Research Infrastructure Integrating Activity "Study of Strongly Interacting Matter" (acronym HadronPhysics2, Grant Agreement n. 227431) under the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU. AB - Effective field theory allows for a systematic and model-independent derivation of the forces between nucleons in harmony with the symmetries of quantum chromodynamics. The foundations of this approach are reviewed and its application for light nuclei at various resolution scales is discussed. The extension of this approach to many-body systems is sketched. KW - J (WoSType) LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000273229500011 DO - DOI:10.1103/RevModPhys.81.1773 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/8535 ER -