Fundamental Physics with Nuclei
- Date/Time
- 03/01/2022 3:00 PM EST - 4:00 PM EST
- Location
- https://vs.prod.odu.edu/bin/reyes_system/
- Fee
- Free
- Description
- 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 validity and extent of 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, including electroweak structure and reactions, we will not be able to meaningfully interpret the experimental data nor can we disentangle new physics signals from underlying nuclear effects. To describe nuclear properties, I use many-body nuclear interactions and electroweak currents derived in chiral effective field theory, and Quantum Monte Carlo methods to solve for the nuclear structure and dynamics of the many-body problem for nuclei. This microscopic approach yields a coherent picture of the nucleus and its properties, and indicates that 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 interactions with nuclei in a wide range of energy and momentum transfer and their connections to current experimental efforts in fundamental symmetries and neutrino physics.
Saori Pastore
Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis
Saori Pastore is an assistant professor at Washington University in St Louis. She obtained her PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Old Dominion University in 2010. Prior to joining WashU in the fall of 2018 with an FRIB Theory Alliance bridge position, she was a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She is an elected member-at-large of the APS Few-Body Systems Topical Group executive committee and of the FRIB Theory Alliance Executive Board. Since 2020, she is a co-convener of the Snowmass topical group 'Theory of neutrino physics', and since 2021 she is a member of the International Advisory Committee. Her research focuses on nuclear electroweak structure and reactions using chiral effective field theories and Quantum Monte Carlo computational methods.
