Nuclear Physics Seminar: Dr. Rahul Somasundaram, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Inferring nuclear Hamiltonians from multi-messenger neutron-star observations
Event Details:
- Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM
- Location: 4138 Physics Research Building
Faculty Host: Tyler Gorda
Abstract
In this talk, we explore how neutron-star observations can constrain nuclear Hamiltonians and test nuclear effective field theory in dense matter. Because this is a nontrivial, uncertainty-sensitive inverse problem, efficient emulators are needed to connect nuclear interactions and many-body calculations with astrophysical observables. We discuss parametric matrix models as a simple and effective approach to emulating computationally expensive many-body calculations. Applying this framework to the gravitational-wave event GW170817 and X-ray measurements from NASA’s Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer, we obtain direct constraints on couplings governing two- and three-nucleon interactions in chiral effective field theory. We further show that next-generation neutron-star merger observations could constrain these couplings at a level comparable to terrestrial experiments, enabling stringent tests of the consistency between nuclear interactions inferred from terrestrial and astrophysical data.
