Séminaire de Saori Pastore: Fundamental Physics with Nuclei

Fundamental Physics with Nuclei

Saori Pastori, Washington University (St. Louis)

Next-generation experiments are poised to explore lepton-number violation, discern the neutrino mass hierarchy, understand the particle nature of dark matter, and answer other fundamental questions aimed at testing the Standard Model. Nuclei are used for these high-precision tests of the Standard Model and for searches of physics Beyond the Standard Model. Without a thorough understanding of nuclei, we will not be able to meaningfully interpret the experimental data nor can we disentangle new physics signals from underlying nuclear effects. Quantum Monte Carlo methods are used to solve the many-body nuclear problem and fully account for many-nucleon correlations. This microscopic approach yields a picture of the nucleus and its interactions with electrons and neutrinos where many-body effects are essential to accurately explain the data. In this talk, I will report on recent progress in Quantum Monte Carlo calculations of electron- and neutrino-nucleus interactions in a wide range of energy and momentum transfer and their connections to current experimental efforts in fundamental symmetries and neutrino physics.