From atomic nuclei to neutrinos and dark matter

First I will present recent progress in theoretical calculations for the structure of atomic nuclei based on chiral effective field theory (EFT), an effective theory of QCD valid at low energies. I will focus on medium-mass nuclei, where calculations have been very successful in the description and prediction of different experimental data. In addition, chiral EFT predicts consistent currents, and operators, describing how nuclei interact with external probes. If detected, neutrinoless double-beta decay will establish the Majorana character of neutrinos, and the associated nuclear matrix elements (NMEs) will inform about the absolute neutrino masses and hierarchy. I will discuss the status of NME calculations, and strategies to obtain more accurate NMEs. Finally I will show results for the scattering of dark matter off nuclei, as explored in direct dark matter detection experiments. I will cover the elastic and inelastic scattering of WIMPs off nuclei using chiral EFT currents, and discuss how experiments could determine the character of the WIMP-nucleon interaction.