Atomic nuclei constitute the heart of matter. They drive the synthesis of the chemical elements, serve as star fuel and as laboratories to test fundamental interactions and the Standard Model. Today, thanks to theoretical advances and high performance computing, we can calculate nuclear properties starting from forces among nucleons and their interactions with external probes for increasingly large systems and address theoretical error bars. This is arguably the doorway to a solid connection between experimental observations and the underlying fundamental theory of quantum chromo-dynamics. In this talk I will present recent highlights that portrait the role of ab-initio calculations to tackle contemporary issues such as the proton-radius puzzle, the study of halo nuclei, the understanding of giant and pigmy resonances and other quantities that allow to predict neutron distributions in nuclei and infer neutron star properties.

Argonne Physics Division Seminar Schedule