Electroweak Structure of Light Nuclei With Quantum Monte Carlo Methods
Garrett King, Washington University in St. Louis
Experimental programs investigating the nature of the nuclear force and testing fundamental symmetries both rely on accurate inputs from nuclear theory to interpret their results. In this poster session, I will present my work which aims to provide reliable nuclear theory calculations of electroweak processes from first principles. I will provide details on quantum Monte Carlo (QMC)— the many-body method that I use to solve the Schrodinger equation for light nuclei— and the Norfolk model of nuclear interactions and electroweak transition operators derived from chiral effective field theory. Validation against experimental data was performed to ensure that the Norfolk model predictions are reliable. In this poster, I will present comparisons between QMC calculations based on the Norfolk model and experimental data for beta decay and muon capture. Additionally, I include a prediction of the experimentally relevant He-6 beta decay spectrum as an example of how this work can contribute to ongoing experimental efforts searching for Beyond the Standard Model physics.
Abstract Author(s): Garrett King