Speaker
Description
First-principles quantum simulations of the atomic nucleus, beginning from only underlying nuclear/weak forces, are currently undergoing nothing short of a revolution. Breakthroughs in our treatment of nuclear forces rooted in QCD, the strongly interacting many-body problem, and AI/machine learning techniques are transforming modern nuclear theory into a true first-principles discipline. In this talk I will outline this next-generation "ab initio" philosophy and spotlight several recent milestones for nuclear structure/astrophysics, including new results to the N=124-128 driplines, nearly 150 nuclei in total, for informing r-process nucleosynthesis simulations for the first time. Here we find a particular improvement in the description of the third peak, and discuss long-term prospects for implementing first principles theory for nuclear astrophysics.