Dense nucleonic matter is of vital importance for understanding compact stars and inferring the transition into deconfined quark phase. We present ab initio exact calculations of infinite nucleonic matter with the state-of-the-art full configuration-interaction quantum Monte Carlo method, enabling us to rigorously benchmark many-body methods and assess the degree to which the nucleonic matter is correlated. Our method has been numerically validated against exact diagonalization within a small model space. Calculations of nucleonic matter using chiral nuclear forces reveal that symmetric nuclear matter is strikingly strongly correlated, raising questions on previous ab initio calculations of nuclear matter with many-body expansion truncations and offering insights into simultaneous descriptions of finite nuclei and infinite nucleonic matter from first principles.Dense nucleonic matter is of vital importance for understanding compact stars and inferring the transition into deconfined quark phase. We present ab initio exact calculations of infinite nucleonic matter with the state-of-the-art full configuration-interaction quantum Monte Carlo method, enabling us to rigorously benchmark many-body methods and assess the degree to which the nucleonic matter is correlated. Our method has been numerically validated against exact diagonalization within a small model space. Calculations of nucleonic matter using chiral nuclear forces reveal that symmetric nuclear matter is strikingly strongly correlated, raising questions on previous ab initio calculations of nuclear matter with many-body expansion truncations and offering insights into simultaneous descriptions of finite nuclei and infinite nucleonic matter from first principles.

arXiv:2508.09252Physical Review LettersJul 9, 20261 citation

Many-body perturbation theory of the effective interaction in nuclei

Michael W. Kirson, Francesco Calogero

Jan 1, 19730 citations

Eigenvector continuation as an efficient and accurate emulator for uncertainty quantification

S. König, A. Ekström, K. Hebeler +2 more

First principles calculations of atomic nuclei based on microscopic nuclear forces derived from chiral effective field theory (EFT) have blossomed in the past years. A key element of such ab initio studies is the understanding and quantification of systematic and statistical errors arising from the omission of higher-order terms in the chiral expansion as well as the model calibration. While there has been significant progress in analyzing theoretical uncertainties for nucleon-nucleon scattering observables, the generalization to multi-nucleon systems has not been feasible yet due to the high computational cost of evaluating observables for a large set of low-energy couplings. In this Letter we show that a new method called eigenvector continuation (EC) can be used for constructing an efficient and accurate emulator for nuclear many-body observables, thereby enabling uncertainty quantification in multi-nucleon systems. We demonstrate the power of EC emulation with a proof-of-principle calculation that lays out all correlations between bulk ground-state observables in the few-nucleon sector. On the basis of ab initio calculations for the ground-state energy and radius in 4He, we demonstrate that EC is more accurate and efficient compared to established methods like Gaussian processes.First principles calculations of atomic nuclei based on microscopic nuclear forces derived from chiral effective field theory (EFT) have blossomed in the past years. A key element of such ab initio studies is the understanding and quantification of systematic and statistical errors arising from the omission of higher-order terms in the chiral expansion as well as the model calibration. While there has been significant progress in analyzing theoretical uncertainties for nucleon-nucleon scattering observables, the generalization to multi-nucleon systems has not been feasible yet due to the high computational cost of evaluating observables for a large set of low-energy couplings. In this Letter we show that a new method called eigenvector continuation (EC) can be used for constructing an efficient and accurate emulator for nuclear many-body observables, thereby enabling uncertainty quantification in multi-nucleon systems. We demonstrate the power of EC emulation with a proof-of-principle calculation that lays out all correlations between bulk ground-state observables in the few-nucleon sector. On the basis of ab initio calculations for the ground-state energy and radius in 4He, we demonstrate that EC is more accurate and efficient compared to established methods like Gaussian processes.

arXiv:1909.08446Physics Letters BSep 30, 2020108 citations

Microscopic calculation of a model 16O nucleus

E. Krotscheck

Nuclear Physics AApr 1, 198725 citations

Toward $\textit{Ab Initio}$ Quantum Simulations of Atomic Nuclei Using Noisy QubitsToward $\textit{Ab Initio}$ Quantum Simulations of Atomic Nuclei Using Noisy Qubits

Chongji Jiang, J. C. Pei, Rongzhe Hu +4 more

Quantum computers are expected to provide a ultimate solver for quantum many-body systems, although it is a tremendous challenge to achieve that goal on current noisy quantum devices. This work illustrated quantum simulations of ab initio no-core shell model calculations of $^3$ H with chiral two-nucleon and three-nucleon forces. The measurement costs are remarkably reduced by using the general commutativity measurement together with the asymptotic optimization. In addition, the noise causes serious contaminations of configurations with undesired particle numbers, and the accuracies are much improved by applying the particle number projected measurement. By tackling the efficiency and noise issues, this work demonstrated a substantial step toward ab initio quantum computing of atomic nuclei.Quantum computers are expected to provide a ultimate solver for quantum many-body systems, although it is a tremendous challenge to achieve that goal on current noisy quantum devices. This work illustrated quantum simulations of ab initio no-core shell model calculations of $^3$H with chiral two-nucleon and three-nucleon forces. The measurement costs are remarkably reduced by using the general commutativity measurement together with the asymptotic optimization. In addition, the noise causes serious contaminations of configurations with undesired particle numbers, and the accuracies are much improved by applying the particle number projected measurement. By tackling the efficiency and noise issues, this work demonstrated a substantial step toward ab initio quantum computing of atomic nuclei.

arXiv:2601.00315Jan 1, 20260 citations

Ab initio many-body calculations of nucleon scattering on

^{16}

Toward

\textit{Ab Initio}

Quantum Simulations of Atomic Nuclei Using Noisy Qubits

^3

H with chiral two-nucleon and three-nucleon forces. The measurement costs are remarkably reduced by using the general commutativity measurement together with the asymptotic optimization. In addition, the noise causes serious contaminations of configurations with undesired particle numbers, and the accuracies are much improved by applying the particle number projected measurement. By tackling the efficiency and noise issues, this work demonstrated a substantial step toward ab initio quantum computing of atomic nuclei.