Speaker
Description
Modern first-principles (or “ab initio”) many-body simulations make it possible to compute the structure of atomic nuclei from scratch, starting from effective field theories of quantum chomodynamics. Recent developments have extended the reach of these simulations to the heaviest stable isotopes, to higher precision, and to new applications including many studies of fundamental interactions in nuclei. Particularly key in these applications to possible new physics in nuclei is the predictive power of first-principles simulations combined with the possibility to systematically quantify remaining theory uncertainties. I will present a study of isotope shifts in stable ytterbium isotopes. Here, high-precision spectroscopy and mass spectrometry revealed an anomalous signal that could potentially be attributed to new physics beyond the standard model. Guided by theoretical calculations, we find, however, that this is in fact a nuclear structure effect, and use this to glean new information about the evolution of the charge density of ytterbium isotopes with changing neutron number.
