Information and statistics: a new paradigm in theoretical nuclear physics

Abstract

Theoretical predictions of physical observables often involve extrapolations to regions that are poorly constrained by laboratory experiments and astrophysical observations. Without properly quantified theoretical errors, such model predictions are of very limited utility. In this contribution we use maximum-likelihood estimation to compute theoretical errors and assess correlations between physical observables. We illustrate the power and elegance of these methods using examples of both pedagogical and realistic interest. In particular, we implement a gaussian approximation to the likelihood function to develop a new relativistic effective interaction constrained by ground-state properties of finite nuclei, their monopole response, and masses of neutron stars.

arXiv comment17 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Journal of Physics G Focus issue "Enhancing the interaction between nuclear experiment and theory through information and statistics" (ISNET)

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Cited by in corpus (15)

• Nuclear Equation of State from ground and collective excited state properties of nuclei
• Nuclear Mass Predictions for the Crustal Composition of Neutron Stars: A Bayesian Neural Network Approach
• Searching for isovector signatures in the neutron-rich oxygen and calcium isotopes
• Neutron skins of atomic nuclei: per aspera ad astra
• Nuclear charge and neutron radii and nuclear matter: trend analysis
• Nuclear dipole polarizability from mean-field modeling constrained by chiral effective field theory
• Sloppy nuclear energy density functionals: effective model reduction
• Isospin coupling-channel decomposition of nuclear symmetry energy in covariant density functional theory
• Symmetry energy effect on the secondary component of GW190814 as a neutron star
• Bayesian inference on the isospin splitting of nucleon effective mass from giant resonances in ${}^{208}$Pb
• Quantifying statistical uncertainties in ab initio nuclear physics using Lagrange multipliers
• Stability of the manifold boundary approximation method for reductions of nuclear structure models
• Classical and Bayesian error analysis of the relativistic mean-field model for doubly magic nuclei
• Analytic insights on the information content of new observables
• Uncertainty evaluation and correlation analysis of single-particle energies in phenomenological nuclear mean field: An investigation of propagating uncertainties for independent model parameters