Physics Colloquium
Towards a universal and precise description of atomic nuclei
Dr. Caroline Robin
Substitute Professor in Theoretical Nuclear Physics
Fakultat fur Physik, Universitat Bielefeld
Nuclei are unique quantum many-body systems which can exhibit a tremendous variety of behaviors. Historically, different many-body methods have been designed to tackle specific mass regions or physical phenomena. However, the advent of new radioactive-beam facilities, together with the urgent need to interpret recent astrophysical observations, now make it essential to provide a predictive description of nuclear properties across the nuclear chart, requiring the connection of traditional theoretical approaches. In this talk, I will explain the need for precise calculations of masses, excitation energies, decay and reaction rates of a large range of nuclei, including those far from stability, and will discuss recent developments in relativistic nuclear field theory to address these challenges. In particular, I will highlight applications of this approach to mid-mass and heavy nuclei, focusing on the description of charge-exchange modes which govern weak-interaction processes, such as beta decay and electron capture, occurring in astrophysical environments. Finally, I will present a recent investigation aiming at characterizing entanglement in light nuclei. Such studies related to quantum information could ultimately lead to more efficient many-body schemes and could benefit the developments of hybrid classical-quantum computations of nuclei.
Hosted by Prof. Surman
All interested persons are invited to attend remotely—email physics@nd.edu for information.