The Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics Seminar series presents Alessandro Lovato discussing "Conventional” and “Artificial-neural network” quantum Monte Carlo studies of nuclei and neutron matter on April 5 at 4 p.m. Seminars are held virtually on Teams or in Lindley S321.

Lovato is a physicist at Argonne National Laboratory.

The host is Charlotte Elster.

Abstract: Understanding how the structure and dynamics of nuclei and infinite nuclear matter emerge from the individual interactions between neutrons and protons is a long-standing goal of nuclear theory. Solving the many-body Schrödinger equation is made particularly challenging by the non-perturbative nature and spin-isospin dependence of nuclear forces. Quantum Monte Carlo methods tackle this problem using stochastic techniques and accurately model short- and long-range nuclear dynamics. In this talk, I will present our recent calculations of the electroweak responses of atomic nuclei and matrix elements relevant to neutrino-less double-beta decay searches. I will then discuss the equation of state of infinite neutron matter, as obtained from local, chiral interactions that explicitly account for the excitation of the Delta resonance. Finally, I will provide some prospects on using artificial neural networks to compactly represent the wave functions of atomic nuclei and translational-invariant systems.