Testing nuclear many-body theory with atoms
There has been tremendous recent progress in solving the nuclear many-body problem ab initio (i.e. starting with protons and neutrons and computing a nucleus). However, one challenge we face when testing new methods is that the force acting between the protons and neutrons is imprecisely known; so disagreement with experiment may simply be due to deficiencies in the nuclear force. To address this, the student will take existing nuclear many-body codes and apply them to atoms, which are governed by the well-known Coulomb force. In this case, comparison with experiment can be taken as a valid test of the many-body method.
The main tasks to be performed by the student will be to run calculations on the CRC cluster and analyze the results to help understand how various approximations made impact the accuracy of the results.
We're a growing group working on ab initio nuclear structure theory, with particular emphasis on calculations relevant for searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model. You'll learn about nuclear physics, quantum mechanics, computing, and who knows what else!