Nuclear structure of light and not-so-light nuclei: an ab-initio approach

Predicting the emergence of nuclear properties and structure from first principles is a formidable task. A fundamental question is whether it is possible to describe nuclei and their global properties, e.g., binding energies, radii, transitions, and reactions, from microscopic nuclear Hamiltonians constructed to reproduce only few-body observables, while simultaneously predicting properties of matter, including the equation of state and the properties of nuclear matter. Despite advanced efforts, definitive answers are not available yet. In this talk, I will approach the problem from an ab-initio perspective, by presenting the recent advances made in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) techniques in combination with the development of interactions derived from chiral effective field theory, an integration that has been shown to provide a versatile and systematic approach to nuclear systems, combining accurate many-body estimates and theoretical uncertainty evaluation. I will describe results for nuclei in a mass range historically difficult to access with standard QMC algorithms, discussing the important achievements and current challenges that such approaches lead to, together with future perspectives and applications.