Nuclear dynamics with quantum Monte Carlo and neural quantum states

by Alessandro Lovato (Argonne National Laboratory & INFN - TIFPA)

Monday 23 Mar 2026, 16:00 → 18:00 Europe/Zurich

4/2-037 - TH meeting room (CERN)

The overarching goal of nuclear many-body theory is to understand how protons and neutrons self-organize to form atomic nuclei. This is a formidable challenge because nuclei exhibit structure over a wide range of scales, from collective motion to clustering and short-range correlations. Quantum Monte Carlo methods are particularly well suited to this problem, as they provide highly accurate solutions of the many-body Schrödinger equation, although their application has been so far limited to light nuclei. In this talk, I will present recent quantum Monte Carlo results for neutrino-nucleus scattering, superallowed beta decays, and two-body distribution functions relevant to heavy-ion collisions at CERN. I will then discuss how artificial neural networks can be used to represent variational states compactly, extending the reach of quantum Monte Carlo methods to much larger nuclear systems. I will conclude with perspectives on accessing the linear response and real-time quantum dynamics of confined quantum many-body systems.