Uncertainty quantification of an empirical shell-model interaction using principal component analysis

Abstract: Recent investigations have emphasized the importance of uncertainty quantification (UQ) to describe errors in nuclear theory. We carry out UQ for configuration-interaction shell model calculations in the $1s$-$0d$ valence space, investigating the sensitivity of observables to perturbations in the 66 parameters (matrix elements) of a high-quality empirical interaction. The large parameter space makes computing the corresponding Hessian numerically costly, so we compare a cost-effective approximation, using the Feynman-Hellmann theorem, to the full Hessian and find it works well. Diagonalizing the Hessian yields the principal components of the interaction: linear combinations of parameters ordered by sensitivity. This approximately decoupled distribution of parameters facilitates theoretical error propagation onto structure observables: electromagnetic transitions, Gamow-Teller decays, and dark matter-nucleus scattering matrix elements.