Conformal prediction is a distribution-free and model-agnostic uncertainty-quantification method that provides finite-sample prediction intervals with guaranteed coverage. In this work, for the first time, we apply conformal-prediction to generate uncertainty bands for physical observables in nuclear physics, such as the total cross section and nucleon-nucleon phase shifts. We demonstrate the method's flexibility by considering three scenarios: (i) a pointwise model, where expansion coefficients in chiral effective field theory are treated as random variables; (ii) a Gaussian-process model for the coefficients; and (iii) phase shifts at various energies and partial waves calculated using local interactions from chiral effective field theory. In each case, conformal-prediction intervals are constructed and validated empirically. Our results show that conformal prediction provides reliable and adaptive uncertainty bands even in the presence of non-Gaussian behavior, such as skewness and heavy tails. These findings highlight conformal prediction as a robust and practical framework for quantifying theoretical uncertainties.
Theoretical uncertainties of various types are discussed for the nucleon-deuteron elastic scattering observables at the incoming nucleon laboratory energies up to 200 MeV. We are especially interested in the statistical errors arising from uncertainties of parameters of a nucleon-nucleon interaction. The obtained uncertainties of the differential cross section and numerous scattering observables are in general small, grow with the reaction energy and amount up to a few percent at 200 MeV. We compare these uncertainties with the other types of theoretical errors like truncation errors, numerica…
Propagation of uncertainties from two-nucleon potential parameters to three-nucleon observables, that is statistical errors for the neutron-deuteron elastic scattering and the deuteron breakup reaction at neutron laboratory energies up to 200 MeV is investigated. To that end we use the chiral nucleon-nucleon interaction with the semi-local momentum-space regularization at various orders of the chiral expansion, exploiting knowledge of the covariance matrix of its parameters. For both reactions we compare statistical uncertainties for chiral predictions with the uncertainties obtained in the sa…
We analyze the low energy NN interaction by confronting statistical vs systematic uncertainties. This is carried out with the help of model potentials fitted to the Granada-2013 database where a statistically meaningful partial wave analysis comprising a total of $6713$ np and pp published scattering data from 1950 till 2013 below $350 {\rm MeV}$ has been made. We extract threshold parameters uncertainties from the coupled channel effective range expansion up to $j \le 5$. We find that for threshold parameters systematic uncertainties are generally at least an order of magnitude larger than st…
Parity-violating polarized electron scattering from nucleons and nuclei provides an excellent tool to extract valuable information on nuclear and nucleon structure, as well as to determine Standard Model couplings and higher-order radiative corrections. As measurements become more precise, theoretical models should improve accordingly in order to exploit the experimental data fully in extracting meaningful information. At the same time, it is crucial that theoretical evaluations come with realistic estimations of the corresponding theoretical uncertainties to establish that the precision reach…
Background: Modern ab initio theory combined with high-quality nucleon-nucleon (NN) and three-nucleon (3N) interactions from chiral effective field theory (EFT) can provide a predictive description of low-energy light-nuclei reactions relevant for astrophysics and fusion-energy applications. However, the high cost of computations has so far impeded a complete analysis of the uncertainty budget of such calculations. Purpose: Starting from NN potentials up to fifth order (N4LO) combined with leading-order 3N forces, we study how the order-by-order convergence of the chiral expansion and confiden…
Initial state anisotropies and their uncertainties in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions from the Monte Carlo Glauber model
在重离子碰撞的流体动力学模拟中，初始态的空间各向异性被转化为末态粒子分布的动量各向异性。因此，在从实验数据中提取特定的QCD物质性质（如粘度）之前，理解初始态各向异性及其不确定性的起源是很重要的。在这项工作中，我们回顾了受伤的核子的方法的基础上的Monte Carlo Glauber模型，特别是图表的不确定性所产生的碰撞核子对和碰撞核内的核子-核子相关性之间的核子-核子相互作用的建模。我们讨论了非弹性核子-核子相互作用的黑盘模型和概率分布函数方法之间的差异，并研究了初始状态相关性的影响，使用国家的最先进的建模这些。
We develop for the first time a microscopic global nucleon-nucleus optical potential with quantified uncertainties suitable for analyzing nuclear reaction experiments at next-generation rare-isotope beam facilities. Within the improved local density approximation and without any adjustable parameters, we begin by computing proton-nucleus and neutron-nucleus optical potentials from a set of five nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory for 1800 target nuclei in the mass range 12 $\leq$ A $\leq$ 242 for energies between 0 MeV $<$ E $\lesssim$ 150 MeV. We then parameterize a global optic…
The NN scattering problem is usually analyzed in terms of partial waves and the corresponding coupled channel phase-shifts and mixing angles, but the available experiments induce correlations amongst the corresponding channels with different quantum numbers. Based on the Granada-2013 database we analyze the meaning and impact of those correlations taking into account both the purely statistical ones reflecting the primary experimental data uncertainties as well as the systematic ones exhibiting the ambiguities in the form of the potential representing the unknown nuclear force for distances be…
We analyse the impact of the statistical uncertainties of the the nucleon-nucleon interaction, based on the Granada-2013 np-pp database, on the binding energies of the triton and the alpha particle using a bootstrap method, by solving the Faddeev equations for $^3$H and the Yakubovsky equations for $^4$He respectively. We check that in practice about 30 samples prove enough for a reliable error estimate. An extrapolation of the well fulfilled Tjon-line correlation predicts the experimental binding of the alpha particle within uncertainties.
We extract the statistical uncertainties for the pion-nucleon ($πN$) low energy constants (LECs) up to fourth order $\mathcal{O}(Q^4)$ in the chiral expansion of the nuclear effective Lagrangian. The LECs are optimized with respect to experimental scattering data. For comparison, we also present an uncertainty quantification that is based solely on \pin{} scattering phase shifts. Statistical errors on the LECs are critical in order to estimate the subsequent uncertainties in \textit{ab initio} modeling of light and medium mass nuclei which exploit chiral effective field theory. As an example o…
Background: Effective interactions for nucleon-nucleus ($NA$) elastic scattering from first principles require the use of the same nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interaction in the structure and reaction calculations, and a consistent treatment of the relevant operators at each order. Purpose: Truncation uncertainties of chiral $NN$ forces have been studied for scattering observables in few-body systems and for bound state properties of light nuclei. We extend this to $NA$ elastic scattering. Methods: With the spectator expansion of multiple scattering theory and the no-core shell model, we use a chir…
To shed light on the deuteron radius puzzle we analyze the theoretical uncertainties of the nuclear structure corrections to the Lamb shift in muonic deuterium. We find that the discrepancy between the calculated two-photon exchange correction and the corresponding experimentally inferred value by Pohl et al. [1] remain. The present result is consistent with our previous estimate, although the discrepancy is reduced from 2.6 $σ$ to 2 $σ$. The error analysis includes statistic as well as systematic uncertainties stemming from the use of nucleon-nucleon interactions derived from chiral effective…
Excited-state uncertainties in lattice-QCD calculations of hadron masses and scattering phase shifts
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory（费米国家加速器实验室）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；Pacific Northwest National Laboratory（太平洋西北国家实验室）
The hypertriton bound state is relevant for inference of knowledge about the hyperon-nucleon (YN) interaction. In this work we compute the binding energy of the hypertriton using the ab initio hypernuclear no-core shell model (NCSM) with realistic interactions derived from chiral effective field theory. In particular, we employ a large family of nucleon-nucleon interactions with the aim to quantify the theoretical precision of predicted hypernuclear observables arising from nuclear-physics uncertainties. The three-body calculations are performed in a relative Jacobi-coordinate harmonic oscilla…
We discuss the uncertainties in constraining low-energy constants of chiral effective field theory from $^3$H $β$ decay. The half-life is very precisely known, so that the Gamow-Teller matrix element has been used to fit the coupling $c_D$ of the axial-vector current to a short-range two-nucleon pair. Because the same coupling also describes the leading one-pion-exchange three-nucleon force, this in principle provides a very constraining fit, uncorrelated with the $^3$H binding energy fit used to constrain another low-energy coupling in three-nucleon forces. However, so far such $^3$H half-lif…
Initial state anisotropies in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions from the Monte Carlo Glauber model
在重离子碰撞的流体动力学模拟中，初始态的空间各向异性转化为末态粒子分布的动量各向异性。因此，理解初始各向异性的起源和量化它们的不确定性对于从实验数据中提取特定的QCD物质性质（如粘度）非常重要。在这项工作中，我们研究了受伤的核子的方法在Monte Carlo Glauber模型的框架，特别关注的不确定性所产生的碰撞核子对之间的核子-核子相互作用和碰撞核内的核子-核子关联的建模。我们比较了黑盘模型和概率轮廓函数方法的非弹性核子核子相互作用，并研究了初始状态的相关性，使用这些国家的最先进的建模的影响。
Recent calculations of nuclear structure corrections to the Lamb shift in light muonic atoms are based on an expansion in a parameter eta, where only terms up to second order are retained. The parameter eta can be shown to be proportional to the square root of the muon/proton mass ratio, so that it is small and the expansion is expected to converge. However, practical implementations show that the eta convergence may be slower than expected. In this work we probe the uncertainties due to this expansion using a different formalism, which is based on a multipole expansion of the longitudinal and…
We perform statistically rigorous uncertainty quantification (UQ) for chiral effective field theory ($χ$EFT) applied to infinite nuclear matter up to twice nuclear saturation density. The equation of state (EOS) is based on high-order many-body perturbation theory calculations with nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions up to fourth order in the $χ$EFT expansion. From these calculations our newly developed Bayesian machine-learning approach extracts the size and smoothness properties of the correlated EFT truncation error. We then propose a novel extension that uses multitask machine l…
We report accurate quantum Monte Carlo calculations of nuclei up to $A=16$ based on local chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order. We examine the theoretical uncertainties associated with the chiral expansion and the cutoff in the theory, as well as the associated operator choices in the three-nucleon interactions. While in light nuclei the cutoff variation and systematic uncertainties are rather small, in $^{16}$O these can be significant for large coordinate-space cutoffs. Overall, we show that chiral interactions constructed to reproduce properties of …
We determine the nucleon electromagnetic form factors and their uncertainties from world electron scattering data. The analysis incorporates two-photon exchange corrections, constraints on the low-Q2 and high-Q2 behavior, and additional uncertainties to account for tensions between different data sets and uncertainties in radiative corrections.
Excited-state uncertainties in lattice-QCD calculations of multi-hadron systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；University of Maryland, College Park（马里兰大学帕克分校）；Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory（费米国家加速器实验室）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；Pacific Northwest National Laboratory（太平洋西北国家实验室）
The basic facts of charge symmetry breaking (CSB) phenomena are reviewed. The relevance of CSB to parity-violating electron-proton scattering experiments that seek to extract strange elastic form factors is discussed. Experimentalists have stated and written that the current uncertainty in our knowledge of CSB limits the ability to push further on the strange form factors. I discuss recent calculations using relativistic chiral perturbation theory and realistic values of strong coupling constants which show that the uncertainties due to lack of knowledge of CSB are at least ten times smaller t…
The energy levels of light hypernuclei are experimentally accessible observables that contain valuable information about the interaction between hyperons and nucleons. In this work we study strangeness $S = -1$ systems $^{3,4}_Λ$H and $^{4,5}_Λ$He using the ab initio no-core shell model (NCSM) with realistic interactions obtained from chiral effective field theory ($χ$EFT). In particular, we quantify the finite precision of theoretical predictions that can be attributed to nuclear physics uncertainties. We study both the convergence of the solution of the many-body problem (method uncertainty)…
Technische Universität Darmstadt（达姆施塔特工业大学）；ExtreMe Matter Institute EMMI, GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH（极端物质研究所 (EMMI)，GSI 重离子研究中心有限公司）；National Center for Computational Sciences, Oak Ridge National Laboratory（国家计算科学中心，橡树岭国家实验室）；Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory（物理部，橡树岭国家实验室）；Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik（马克斯·普朗克核物理研究所）
We introduce a new framework for quantifying correlated uncertainties of the infinite-matter equation of state derived from chiral effective field theory ($χ$EFT). Bayesian machine learning via Gaussian processes with physics-based hyperparameters allows us to efficiently quantify and propagate theoretical uncertainties of the equation of state, such as $χ$EFT truncation errors, to derived quantities. We apply this framework to state-of-the-art many-body perturbation theory calculations with nucleon-nucleon and three-nucleon interactions up to fourth order in the $χ$EFT expansion. This produce…
We apply improved nucleon-nucleon potentials up to fifth order in chiral effective field theory, along with a new analysis of the theoretical truncation errors, to study nucleon-deuteron (Nd) scattering and selected low-energy observables in 3H, 4He, and 6Li. Calculations beyond second order differ from experiment well outside the range of quantified uncertainties, providing truly unambiguous evidence for missing three-nucleon forces within the employed framework. The sizes of the required three-nucleon force contributions agree well with expectations based on Weinberg's power counting. We ide…
We perform an extensive study of the correlations between the neutrino-nucleon inverse mean free paths (IMFPs) and the underlying equation of states (EoSs). Strong interaction uncertainties in the neutrino mean free path are investigated in different density regimes. The nucleon effective mass, the nucleon chemical potentials, and the residual interactions in the medium play an important role in determining neutrino-nucleon interactions in a density-dependent manner. We study how the above quantities are constrained by an EoS consistent with (i) nuclear mass measurements, (ii) proton-proton sc…
We quantify the theoretical uncertainties of chiral effective-field-theory predictions of the muon-deuteron capture rate. Theoretical error estimates of this low-energy process is important for a reliable interpretation of forthcoming experimental results by the MuSun collaboration. Specifically, we estimate the three dominant sources of uncertainties that impact theoretical calculations of this rate: those resulting from uncertainties in the pool of fit data used to constrain the coupling constants in the nuclear interaction, those due to the truncation of the effective field theory, and thos…
A Gaussian Process framework for constraining the nuclear equation of state from microscopic calculations with correlated uncertainties
Ohio University（俄亥俄大学）；Argonne National Laboratory（阿贡国家实验室）；University of Washington（华盛顿大学）；University of California, Berkeley（加州大学伯克利分校）；Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学）
To achieve its design goals, the next generation of neutrino-oscillation accelerator experiments requires percent-level predictions of neutrino-nucleus cross sections supplemented by robust estimates of the theoretical uncertainties involved. The latter arise from both approximations in solving the nuclear many-body problem and in the determination of the single- and few-nucleon quantities taken as input by many-body methods. To quantify both types of uncertainty, we compute flux-averaged double-differential cross sections using the Green's function Monte Carlo and spectral function methods as…
Heavy-ion-collision measurements in combination with transport model simulations serve as important tools for extracting the nuclear incompressibility. However, uncertainties in transport models (or model dependence) partly affect the reliability of the extracted result. In the present work, by using the recently measured data of rapidity-dependent flows, we constrain the incompressibility of nuclear matter and analyse the impact of model uncertainties on the obtained value. The method is based on the newly updated version of the ultrarelativistic quantum molecular dynamics (UrQMD) model in wh…
We apply the low-energy theorems to analyze the recent lattice QCD results for the two-nucleon system at a pion mass of $M_π\simeq 450$ MeV obtained by the NPLQCD collaboration. We find that the binding energies of the deuteron and dineutron are inconsistent with the low-energy behavior of the corresponding phase shifts within the quoted uncertainties and vice versa. Using the binding energies of the deuteron and dineutron as input, we employ the low-energy theorems to predict the phase shifts and extract the scattering length and the effective range in the $^3S_1$ and $^1S_0$ channels. Our re…
We present an extraction of the pion-nucleon ($πN$) scattering lengths from low-energy $πN$ scattering, by fitting a representation based on Roy-Steiner equations to the low-energy data base. We show that the resulting values confirm the scattering-length determination from pionic atoms, and discuss the stability of the fit results regarding electromagnetic corrections and experimental normalization uncertainties in detail. Our results provide further evidence for a large $πN$ $σ$-term, $σ_{πN}=58(5)$ MeV, in agreement with, albeit less precise than, the determination from pionic atoms.
Elastic lepton scattering off of a nucleon has proved to be an efficient tool to study the structure of the hadron. Modern cross section and asymmetry measurements at Jefferson Lab require effects beyond the leading order Born approximation to be taken into account. Availability of unpolarized beams of both electrons and positrons in respective experiments would enable to reduce systematic uncertainties due to higher-order charge-odd contributions. In addition, information on an unpolarized electron-to-positron cross section ratio could serve as a test for theoretical models that provide predi…
