DATE:

Friday, April 7, 2006

TITLE:

HACKING THE ATOMIC NUCLEUS: COMPUTATIONAL APPROACHES TO QUANTUM MANY-BODY WAVEFUNCTIONS (No. 114)

TIME:

3:30 PM

LOCATION:

GMCS-214

SPEAKER:

Calvin Johnson
Department of Physics
San Diego State University

ABSTRACT:

The quantum wavefunction of the atomic nucleus is needed to understand nuclear reactions in stars and to decode the mass of the tiniest neutrinos. Such wavefunctions, which may have dozens or even hundreds of degrees of freedom, are a computational nightmare�or a challenge. I will discuss how one approaches such a daunting task, with a focus on some of the important computational issues, and finish with a discussion of the state-of-the-art: ab initio calculations involving vectors with nearly a billion elements.

HOST:

Ricardo Carretero