Computational Nuclear Structure Physics

The treatment of the atomic nucleus as a quantum many-body problem presents an exciting challenge for numerical algorithms and methods in computational physics. In recent years, there have been many new developments in this area, both in terms of formulating approaches and controlled approximations for handling the quantum many-body problem, and in the numerical algorithms necessary for practically solving the defined problem. This seminar aims to provide a hands-on overview of modern computer-based methods in nuclear structure physics, extending to the most powerful approaches in computational nuclear physics used in current research. Each seminar topic includes a “theoretical” part, which focuses on the formulation of the method within many-body quantum mechanics, and a “computational” part, where students will create their own proof-of-concept implementation of the respective method, e.g., in Python or Mathematica. Basic programming skills, such as those taught in the “Computational Physics” lecture, are sufficient for this.