Taylor's background is in theoretical physics; he earned a Ph.D. at Texas A&M University where he specialized in nuclear many-body physics and computational physics. He went on to a postdoctoral research position at Michigan State University where he worked on theoretical models for nuclear reactions. Taylor is specifically interested in High Performance Computing and Machine Learning applications to physics-based problems.

A full list of my publications may be found here: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1621981



Recent Papers




Microscopic nucleus-nucleus optical potentials from nuclear matter with uncertainty analysis from chiral forces

T.R. Whitehead

arXiv:2210.03031

Nucleus-nucleus optical potentials are constructed from an energy density functional approach first outlined by Brueckner et al. The interaction term of the energy density functional comes from the complex nucleon self-energy computed in nuclear matter with two- and three-body chiral nuclear forces. Nuclear density distributions are calculated from Skyrme functionals constrained to the equations of state calculated from the same chiral forces used for the self-energy. Predictions for elastic scattering cross sections and fusion cross sections are compared to experimental data. Very good agreement is found with experiment for elastic scattering of heavier nucleus-nucleus systems at energies in the range of 20 <90 mev="" n,="" while="" accurate="" descriptions="" of="" lighter="" and="" lower-energy="" systems="" may="" require="" the="" inclusion="" collective="" excitations.<="" span=""> <90>




Prediction of (p,n) Charge-Exchange Reactions with Uncertainty Quantification

T.R. Whitehead, T. Poxon-Pearson, F.M. Nunes, G. Potel

Phys.Rev.C 105 (2022) 5, 054611

Background: Charge-exchange reactions are a powerful tool for exploring nuclear structure and nuclear astrophysics, however, a robust charge-exchange reaction theory with quantified uncertainties is essential to extracting reliable physics. Purpose: The goal of this work is to determine the uncertainties due to optical potentials used in the theory for charge-exchange reactions to isobaric analogue states. Method: We implement a two-body reaction model to study (p,n) charge-exchange transitions and perform a Bayesian analysis. We study the (p,n) reaction to the isobaric analog states of 14C, 48Ca, and 90Zr targets over a range of beam energies. We compare predictions using standard phenomenological optical potentials with those obtained microscopically. Results: Charge-exchange cross sections are reasonably reproduced by modern optical potentials. However, when uncertainties in the optical potentials are accounted for, the resulting predictions of charge-exchange cross sections have very large uncertainties. Conclusions: The charge-exchange reaction cross section is strongly sensitive to the input interactions, making it a good candidate to further constrain nuclear forces and aspects of bulk nuclear matter. However, further constraints on the optical potentials are necessary for a robust connection between this tool and the underlying isovector properties of nuclei.





Global Microscopic Description of Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering with Quantified Uncertainties

T.R. Whitehead, Y. Lim, and J.W. Holt

Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 182502

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≤A≤242 for energies between 0  MeV








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