Toward a Standard Model for Medium to Heavy Mass Nuclei

Michigan State University, East Lansing MI

Investigators

Abstract

"A standard model for medium to heavy-mass nuclei" Our current knowledge of the structure of atomic nuclei is still far from complete as it is mainly rooted on the properties of nuclei in the vicinity of the line of beta stability (nuclei with a ratio of neutron number over proton number reasonably close to one). For that reason and because the understanding of nuclei has a broad range of application, including Cosmology and Astrophysics, the physics of exotic rare isotopes has become one of the top research priorities both in the U.S. and worldwide. In order to accompany the present development of new rare-isotopes accelerators around the world, the goal of the present theoretical project is to develop a fully microscopic model of medium to heavy-mass nuclei. It is quite urgent to realize such a long-term goal of nuclear structure since current best many-body methods are hardly predictive when applied to unknown medium-mass isotopes with a large excess of neutrons. Among several important features of the project, our goal is to achieve a better understanding of the modifications brought about by the presence of a neutron-rich environment to the nucleon-nucleon interaction. This is a key element to describe accurately medium-mass neutron-rich nuclei which are of prime interest to unreveal nucleo-synthesis scenarii in the universe.