LANL nuclear reaction and structure models: recent applications and insights

The atomic nucleus is one of the most multifaceted systems in the universe. The approach of studying these complex systems through the use of global nuclear models has been a cornerstone of Los Alamos National Lab and proven insightful to a wide variety of applications. I report on three recent projects which highlight the power of this approach. I first discuss the addition of low lying (M1 scissors) gamma-strength and its impact on radiative neutron capture cross sections in the Hauser-Feshbach framework. The energy and strength of this mode is assumed to be related to nuclear deformation which improves the match to evaluated data. I next explore neutron-gamma competition by allowing for the statistical decay of nuclei after beta-decay using the recently developed QRPA+HF framework at Los Alamos. This approach uses microscopic nuclear structure information to provide more robust predictions for branching ratios and additionally yields particle spectra. Finally, I report on recent work related to the FIRE (Fission In R-process Elements) collaboration and discuss my vision for future work at the laboratory.