The last decades have witnessed tremendous progress in nuclear many-body theory, aiming to understand how nuclei emerge from the individual interactions among protons and neutrons. Effective field theories exploit the symmetries of quantum chromo-dynamics to construct realistic nuclear potentials and consistent electroweak currents in a systematic fashion. They are the input to “ab-initio” many-body methods that solve the many-body Schrödinger equation with controlled approximations. Among them, quantum Monte Carlo approaches are known for their accuracy and capability to treat on the same footing long-range structure and short-range dynamics of nuclear systems. I will report on recent quantum Monte Carlo progresses towards a comprehensive description of the spectrum of light nuclei, their interactions with neutrinos, and the nucleonic matter equation of state. A novel representation of the nuclear many-body wave function in terms of artificial neural networks, suitable to extend the reach of quantum Monte Carlo to medium-mass nuclei, will also be discussed.
Zoom link will be available via announcement email, or by contacting: stroberg[at]uw.edu.