There are approximately 3,000 known nuclei, most of them produced in the
laboratory. It is estimated that additionally up to approximately 6,000 nuclei
could in principle still be created and studied in the foreseeable future. An
understanding of the properties of these elements is crucial for a complete
nuclear theory, for element formation, for properties of stars, and for present
and future energy and defense applications. We plan a comprehensive study of
all these nuclei, based on the most accurate knowledge of the strong nuclear
interaction, the most reliable theoretical approaches, and a massive use of
the computer power available at this moment in time, with the view of scaling
to the petaflop computers to become available in the near future.Until recently such an undertaking was hard to imagine, and even at the present time such an ambitious endeavor would be far beyond what a single researcher or a traditional research group could carry out. This project will involve theoretical physicists, computer scientists, and students from universities and national laboratories. Our long-term vision is to arrive at a comprehensive and unified description of nuclei and their reactions, grounded in the fundamental interactions between the constituent nucleons. We seek to replace current phenomenological models of nuclear structure and reactions with a well-founded microscopic theory that delivers maximum predictive power with well-quantified uncertainties.
The Energy Density Functional (EDF) is at the heart of the project. EDF
theory has been spectacularly successful in condensed matter physics and
chemistry, as was recognized in the Nobel Prize awarded to Walter Kohn in 1998.
In fact, it was the combined work of many dedicated researchers that culminated
in finding a remarkably accurate functional for use in chemistry. Recognizing
that the nucleus is composed of fermions, neutrons and protons, EDF is the
only tractable theory that can be applied across the entire table of nuclides.
The mission of this project is three-fold:
- First, to find an optimal functional using all our knowledge of
the nucleonic Hamiltonian and basic nuclear properties.
- Second, to apply the EDF theory and its extensions to validate
the functional using all the available relevant nuclear structure data.
- Third, to apply the validated theory to properties of interest that
cannot be measured, in particular the transition properties needed for
reaction theory.
The activities to be supported fall into different areas of nuclear theory
and computer science, but the goal can only be achieved by working at the
interfaces among these areas. They are: ab initio theory of nuclear wave
functions, Effective Field Theory (EFT) and its extensions, self-consistent
mean-field description of ground and excited states, large amplitude collective
motion, low-energy reaction theory and computer science. The diagram above right
shows the main areas and the links that we propose to establish to achieve
the end goal.
Science Application: Nuclear Physics
Project Title: Building a Universal Nuclear Energy Density Functional
Co-Principal Investigators: E. (Rusty) Lusk, Witek Nazarewicz
Affiliation: Argonne National Laboratory, University of Tennessee
Project Webpage: http://unedf.org
Participating Institutions and Co-Investigators:
Ames National Laboratory - Masha Sosonkina
Argonne National Laboratory - Steven Pieper, Robert Wiringa,
E. (Rusty) Lusk, Jorge Moré, Boyana Norris, M. Pervin
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory - Esmond Ng, Chao Yang
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory - Juliet Escher, Petr Navratil,
Erich Ormand, Ian Thompson, S. Quaglioni, G. Stoitcheva
Los Alamos National Laboratory - Joseph Carlson, Toshihiko Kawano, M. Dupuis, Peter Möller
Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Goran Arbanas, David Dean, Witek Nazarewicz,
George Fann, Kenneth Roche, William Shelton, G. Hagen
Central Michigan University - Mihai Horoi, Z. Gao
Iowa State University - James Vary, P. Maris
Michigan State University - B. Alex Brown, Thomas Duguet
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - Jonathan Engel
Ohio State University - Richard Furnstahl, Joaquín Drut, Lucas Platter
San Diego State University - Calvin Johnson
Texas A & M Commerce - C. Bertulani, J. Huang
University of Tennessee - Carlos Bertulani, Witold (Witek) Nazarewicz, Thomas Papenbrock, J. Pei, N. Schunck, M. Stoitsov
University of Washington - George Bertsch (PI), Aurel Bulgac, S.-Y. Chang
Funding Partners:
Office of Science,
Advanced Scientific Computing Research, and
National Nuclear Security Agency
Budget and Duration: Approximately $3 Million per year for five years
1
Other SciDAC physics efforts
1Subject to acceptable progress review and the availability
of appropriated funds
