The atomic nucleus is a mesoscopic quantum system of strongly interacting nucléons whose phenomenology is incredibly diverse and rich. To this day, our capacity to describe and predict how these features, even the most basic ones, emerge from elementary interactions between the nucleons remains extremely limited. In this context, the last ten years have witnessed a proliferation of theoretical ideas whose ambition is, in connection with the experimental production of ever more exotic nuclei, to comprehend the properties of a greater number of nuclear states from “first principles”. In this presentation, I will summarize this line of research and try to give an idea of the challenges that are emerging today within the frame of low-energy nuclear theory.

IRFU/SPhN and KU Leuven