Towards Density Functional Calculations from Nuclear Forces

We propose a method for microscopic calculations of nuclear ground-state properties in the framework of density functional theory. We discuss how the density functional is equivalent to the effective action for the density, thereby establishing a constructive framework for density functional calculations from nuclear forces. The presented approach starts from non-interacting nucleons in a background potential (a simple approximation for the mean field). The nuclear forces are then gradually turned on, while the background potential is removed. The evolution equation yields the ground-state energy and density of a system of interacting nucleons, including exchange-correlations beyond the RPA approximation. The method can start from non-local low momentum (V_{low k}) or chiral interactions.