In the low-energy region far below the chiral symmetry breaking scale (which is of the order of 1 GeV) chiral perturbation theory provides a model-independent approach for quantitative description of nuclear processes. In the two- and more-nucleon sector perturbation theory is applicable only at the level of an effective potential which serves as input in the corresponding dynamical equation. To deal with the resulting many-body problem we put chiral effective field theory (EFT) on the lattice. Here we present the results of our lattice EFT study up to next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. Accurate description of two-nucleon phase-shifts and ground state energy ratio of dilute neutron matter up to corrections of higher orders shows that lattice EFT is a promising tool for a quantitative description of low-energy few- and many-body systems.

15 pages, 9 figures, plenary talk presented at the XXVI International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 14-19, 2008, Williamsburg, Virginia, USA