Theoretical calculations of nuclear reactions provide critical inputs for modeling of important astrophysical, cosmological and experimental processes such as stellar nuclear burning, big-bang nucleosynthesis and neutrino detection. Precision calculations with well-justified uncertainty estimates are needed both for cross sections probed by ongoing and planned experiments, and for those that are probed imprecisely or not at all by available experimental techniques. Nuclear theory is in a better position than ever to provide such calculations owing to (i) continuing developments in effective field theories of quantum chromodynamics that enable us to calculate low-energy reactions involving light nuclei and halo/cluster nuclei in a systematically improvable framework, and (ii) recent progress in techniques for rigorous treatment of uncertainties in such calculations.
This Virtual Workshop will bring together experts working on (i) formal developments in effective field theories of the strong interactions and electroweak currents, (ii) applications of such approaches to specific nuclear reactions, (iii) parameter estimation, model selection, optimization and statistical uncertainty analysis techniques applicable for nuclear theory, (iv) astrophysical models that need precise nuclear rates, (v) precision cross section measurements. The Workshop aims to help nuclear theorists prioritize important processes where precise calculations are feasible, forge collaborations to study them, discuss both current practice for uncertainty quantification in these reactions and how to improve it, identify the course of action that needs to be taken to push uncertainty quantification in calculations of nuclear reactions beyond the current state of the art, and learn what approaches will get buy-in from experimentalists and astrophysicists.
