From low-momentum interactions to nuclear structure

We present an overview of low-momentum two-nucleon and many-body interactions and their use in calculations of nuclei and infinite matter. The softening of phenomenological and effective field theory (EFT) potentials by renormalization group (RG) transformations that decouple low and high momenta leads to greatly enhanced convergence in few- and many-body systems, while maintaining a decreasing hierarchy of many-body forces. This review surveys the RG-based technology and results, discusses the connections to chiral EFT, and clarifies various misconceptions.