The Nuclear Many-Body Problem: Toward a Predictive Microscopic Theory

稀有核同位素的研究成为低能核物理中最吸引人的话题。这类研究除了提高对基本相互作用的理解外，还促进了具有直接社会影响的应用，包括在医学、国土安全和工业方面的应用。具有不稳定原子核光束的实验设备的出现为这一研究领域开辟了新的机会，例如预测恒星和星系演化的天体物理学应用。在这种背景下，原子核理论被用来提供实验上无法获得的关于奇异核的缺失信息。为了这一努力，该项目将有助于实现核结构的新想法，并将以最先进的实验数据为基准。通过让研究生参与这项研究来培训他们，并在学术界和工业界开始他们的职业生涯，是该项目的重要组成部分。这一新成果将被用于提升相关研究生课程，旨在吸引年轻人才进入核物理领域。该项目研究了多体量子系统中涌现集体的微观机制的基本理论问题。新的理论方法将被开发出来，以从潜在的核力中获得集体效应。该方法将用于描述在主要核物理设施，如密歇根州立大学的国家超导回旋加速器实验室/稀有同位素束设施和东京的物理和化学研究所所研究的核光谱。还将讨论在描述核质量和半径方面的紧迫问题。在对数据进行基准测试后，实现将扩展到有限的温度，以模拟恒星环境中中等质量原子核的行为。这将使人们能够获得核反应率的高质量描述，作为中子星合并和超新星爆炸的天体物理模型的输入。该项目的一部分将致力于原型系统的量子计算，并为计算原子核寻找高效的量子经典算法。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Investigation of rare nuclear isotopes becomes the most fascinating topic in the low-energy nuclear physics. Such studies, besides improving the understanding of fundamental interactions, facilitate applications with direct societal impact, including those in medicine, homeland security, and industry. The advent of experimental facilities with beams of unstable atomic nuclei opens up new opportunities in this area of research, such as astrophysical applications for predicting the evolution of stars and galaxies. In this context nuclear theory is engaged to provide missing information about exotic nuclei that is not accessible experimentally. To this effort the project will contribute an implementation of novel ideas on nuclear structure, which will be benchmarked against state-of-the-art experimental data. Training graduate students by engaging them in this research and launching their careers in academia and industry are important components of the project. The novel results will be employed in upgrading the relevant graduate courses, aiming at attracting young talents to the field of nuclear physics.This project addresses fundamental theoretical questions about microscopic mechanisms of emergent collectivity in many-body quantum systems. The new theoretical method will be developed to derive the collective effects from the underlying nuclear forces. The method will be implemented numerically for the description of nuclear spectra studied at major nuclear physics facilities, such as the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) / Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University and the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) in Tokyo. Burning issues in the description of nuclear masses and radii will be addressed as well. Upon benchmarking to data, the implementations will be extended to finite temperatures to model the behavior of medium-mass nuclei in stellar environments. This will allow one to obtain a high-quality description of the nuclear reaction rates, which serve as an input for astrophysical modeling of neutron star mergers and supernova explosions. Part of the project will be devoted to quantum computation of prototype systems and search for efficient quantum-classical algorithms for computing atomic nuclei.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.