Effective field theory for nuclear vibrations with quantified uncertainties

TL;DR

This paper develops an effective field theory for nuclear vibrations, accurately describing spectra and electromagnetic properties of various nuclei while quantifying uncertainties using Bayesian methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel EFT framework for nuclear vibrations that incorporates Bayesian uncertainty quantification and is validated against multiple nuclei data.

Findings

EFT accurately describes spectra and electromagnetic transitions within uncertainties.

Nuclei studied behave as anharmonic vibrators according to the EFT.

Bayesian methods effectively quantify theoretical uncertainties.

Abstract

We develop an effective field theory (EFT) for nuclear vibrations. The key ingredients - quadrupole degrees of freedom, rotational invariance, and a breakdown scale around the three-phonon level - are taken from data. The EFT is developed for spectra and electromagnetic moments and transitions. We employ tools from Bayesian statistics for the quantification of theoretical uncertainties. The EFT consistently describes spectra and electromagnetic transitions for $^{62}$Ni, $^{98,100}$Ru, $^{106,108}$Pd, $^{110,112,114}$Cd, and $^{118,120,122}$Te within the theoretical uncertainties. This suggests that these nuclei can be viewed as anharmonic vibrators.