Electron and Neutrino Interactions with Nuclei with Saori Pastore

Electron and neutrino interactions with nuclei have been instrumental in understanding nuclear structure and in formulating the Standard Model. Nuclei are complex many-body systems of interacting protons and neutrons (nucleons). Understanding their behavior requires accounting for many-nucleon dynamics--correlations among nucleons and interactions of electrons and neutrinos with clusters of correlated nucleons. Microscopic approaches to nuclear theory, such as quantum Monte Carlo methods, aim to capture this complexity and provide accurate, predictive descriptions of nuclear properties rooted in the fundamental interactions.

In this talk, I will present recent quantum Monte Carlo studies of electron and neutrino interactions with nuclei in a wide range of energy and momentum transfer, from low-energy decay to 'high'-energy scattering. I will highlight the importance of many-nucleon dynamics in accurately explaining the experimental data and discuss how these studies inform ongoing experimental efforts in nuclear physics, precision tests of the Standard Model and neutrino physics.

This lecture was made possible by the William C. Ferguson Fund