Nuclear Structure, Nuclear Astrophysics and Mesoscopic Physics

Our proposed research relates to broad questions in science including: What are the limits of nuclear stability? How did the chemical evolution of the Universe proceed? What are the ways of self-organization in interacting many-body systems? How do the nuclear properties emerge from the underlying nucleon-nucleon interactions? How does order coexist with chaos and complexity in quantum mesoscopic systems? The suggested program is expected to have appreciable impact on developments in the field of nuclear theory, nuclear astrophysics and the general field of mesoscopic physics. Many of the projects are connected to the experimental programs at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and other laboratories. Projects are also closely coupled with the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA).

Research topics include: (i) development of new analytical and computational tools for the description of nuclear structure, especially for the nuclei far from stability and for heavy nuclei; (ii) detailed consideration of specific nuclear phenomena and nuclear processes that shed light on the new features encountered with experimental advances into virgin territory of unstable nuclei; (iii) calculations and modeling of structural and dynamical aspects of nuclear processes of astrophysical interest; (iv) development of the unified description of structure and reactions in open and marginally stable mesoscopic systems, including nuclear reactions, conductance fluctuations and quantum transport; (iv) studies of the nucleus as a mesoscopic system, including many-body quantum chaos and its coexistence with collective and regular features.