Exploration of High-Dimensional Nuclei Data

Density Functional Theory (DFT) provides the theoretical foundation for a self-consistent mean-field description of the nucleus in terms of one-body densities and currents. The idea is to construct a functional whose input is the proton and neutron densities and currents, and whose output yields the ground-state energy and other properties of the nucleus. Extensive computations of ground-state energies and other observable properties of several thousand nuclei are required in order to find a universal functional that covers the entire chart of nuclei. The analysis looks for hidden relationships between observables to determine a functional that can reliably predict nuclear properties in regions where no experimental data exist. Using methods for dimension reduction and visualization tools, it is hypothesized that the deformation of the neutrons is related to other characteristics of the nuclei. The discovered relationships with the deformation of the neutrons take us a step closer toward the universal functional.