Friday, March 4, 2005

Dr. Anatoli Afanasjev

Dept of Physics, University of Notre Dame

"Nuclei at the Limits"  

2:00 pm in room P-148

Abstract:  The history of nuclear science has always been characterized by the attempts to study the nuclei at the limits (or extreme values) related to deformation, spin, isospin, proton and neutron number etc. The experiments and theoretical works performed at the ``limits'' contributed enormously to our understanding of nuclei and nuclear matter. Future Rare Isotope Accelerator (RIA, USA) will open new horizons for study of nuclear limits.

New physics requires new and more advanced theoretical tools. One of such tools is Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov (RHB) theory. In this theory, the nucleus is described as a system of nucleons which interact by the exchange of different mesons. The basic features of this theory will be shown. I will illustrate the potential of this theory by few examples which include rotating nuclei (extreme conditions of fast rotation and superdeformation), superheavy nuclei (nuclei with extreme values of proton number), and neutron rich nuclei (extremes of isospin) in nuclear astrophysics and in the crust of neutron stars.