Colloquium

Ab initio theory - Building bridges from quarks to the cosmos

Professor James P. Vary
Iowa State University

Wednesday, November 18, 2009   4:00 p.m.  NSH 118

(Refreshments at 3:30 p.m. NSH 202)

 

Fundamental theories, such as Quantum Chromodynmamics (QCD) and Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) offer the promise of great predictive power spanning phenomena on all scales from the microscopic to cosmic scales.  However, new tools that do not rely exclusively on perturbation theory are required to build bridges from one scale to the next.  I will outline recent theoretical and computational progress in nuclear theory to build these bridges.  Important phenomena such as the origin of three-nucleon forces and the spin-orbit properties of light nuclei are emerging as sensitive tests of the theories.  These phenomena will play important roles in nuclear double beta decay and searches for physics beyond the standard model.

 

Host: Mark Caprio