Nuclear Beta Decay: Relativistic Theory and Ab Initio Simulations of Electroweak Decay Spectra in Medium-Heavy Nuclei and of Atomic and Molecular Electronic Structure (Adv. Theory Simul. 11/2018)

In this work a novel theoretical and computational method for computing electroweak beta decay spectra of medium and heavy‐mass nuclei, as well as the electronic structure of atomic and molecular systems is developed. In particular, starting from the phenomenological electroweak interaction of the Standard Model (SM) of particles, a general expression of the beta decay rate was derived. Relativistic effects are taken into account by solving the many‐electron Dirac equation from first‐principles. Furthermore, an extension of this approach to include the nucleon‐nucleon interaction at the same level of theory of the electronic correlations has been devised. It is shown that post‐collisional effects, and to a lesser extent the electronic exchange and correlation, can modify significantly the cross‐section only at low energies (