Nuclear Physics Seminar: Dr. Antoine Belley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Precision measurements of the atomic nucleus are increasingly gaining focus as a very promising way to search for beyond the standard physics; either by looking for deviations from Standard Model predictions like in the case of superallowed beta decays and anapole moments, or searching for processes that violates the Standard Model directly, like in the case of the electric dipole moment and, the focus of this talk, neutrinoless double beta decay. In all those searches, inputs from nuclear theory are required, either to assess if there are actual deviations from the Standard Model or to obtain new physics parameters from potential experimental observations. Unfortunately, current uncertainties in nuclear theory represents the biggest sources of uncertainties for this searches.

 

My work focuses on the first step to reducing these uncertainties, correctly assessing them. To this end, I am particularly interested in emulator techniques that can allow to quickly sample parameters in the nuclear calculations across the nuclear chart. With these emulators, it is not only possible to get reliable uncertainties on nuclear theory inputs, but also to assess the size of the different sources of uncertainty in the calculations, therefore allowing to direct efforts to reduce these uncertainties. In particular, I will use the nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double beta decay as an example to present how this is done in practice and discuss how these results affect current and future experimental searches.