A research team
in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M University.
Motivation
Research Tools
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Except for a few primordial elements (H, He, Li) created during the Big Bang, nearly all naturally occurring elements are synthesized in stars. The most massive stars collapse and explode, releasing these elements into space and generating new elements in the explosion itself. This stellar debris can be recycled into new stars or form planets. Nuclear science helps us understand how elements are created, how stars explode in supernovae, and the properties of the compact stellar objects (neutron stars, which are typically observed as “pulsars”) that remain behind. Neutron stars can even be born in binary systems, where they gradually inspiral and emit gravitational waves that can be detected using high-precision Earth-based laser interferometers. Atomic nuclei and neutron stars contain the densest observable matter in the universe, at about 100 billion kilograms per cubic centimeter, and probing the connections between these two macroscopically different, yet microscopically similar, physical systems is a fundamental aim of modern nuclear science research.
Our goal is to understand the properties of matter under these extreme conditions using state-of-the-art models of the nuclear force. The fundamental theory of the strong interaction, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), that describes the interactions among quarks and gluons is highly nonperturbative at the low energy scales characteristic of normal nuclear processes. However, one can exploit the symmetries and symmetry-breaking pattern of QCD to develop a low-energy realization of strongly interacting matter in terms of nucleons and pions (the lightest meson). Effectively, one exploits the natural separation of energy scales between nuclear physics processes (q ~ 200 MeV) and quark/gluon processes (Λ ~ 1000 MeV) to develop a systematic hierarchy of the nuclear interaction in powers of (q/Λ). The resulting theory also enables a more precise estimation of theoretical uncertainties than previous models of the nuclear force.
Code/Tool Sharing
We believe in open-source science and would be happy to share any of our codes/results with interested parties. Click here for contact information.
David Friedenberg
PhD Candidate
David Friedenberg received his BA in Physics and Mathematics from Yeshiva University in 2020 and his MA in Physics in 2021. David started his PhD research at Texas A&M University in 2022 and has been working with the NSF-funded MUSES collaboration to adapt nuclear matter equation of state models based on chiral effective field theory into a new cyberinfrastructure which will provide the scientific community novel tools to answer critical interdisciplinary questions in nuclear astrophysics. David is also working on developing finite-temperature microscopic optical model potentials beyond the mean-field approximation based on chiral two-body and three-body potentials.
Eunkyoung Shin
PhD Candidate
My research interest is in nuclear astrophysics and computational physics. I study neutrino interactions with hot and dense nuclear matter through response functions derived from chiral effective field theory. Neutrino mean free paths are relevant for core-collapse supernova simulations and the detectable neutrino signal on Earth from galactic supernovae. For this analysis, I use Fortran, Python, and high performance parallel computing. Before starting my PhD at Texas A&M, I completed my B.S. in physics at Pusan National University and my M.S. in physics at Kyungpook National University.
Laina Stahulak
PhD Candidate
My primary research focus is the application of computational methods to ab initio quantum many-body calculations of nuclear matter observables, based on the framework of chiral effective-field theory. Hailing from the Salt Lake valley, I attended the University of Utah for my undergraduate degree in physics, with minor focuses in computer science and mathematics.
Pengsheng Wen
PhD Candidate
My research interest is applying machine learning techniques to study nuclear interactions and the nuclear matter equation of state. Before starting my PhD at Texas A&M, I completed a B.S. in physics at Jilin University.
Jeremy Holt
Associate Professor
I’m a nuclear theorist interested in the physics of hot and dense matter, core-collapse supernovae, neutron stars, compact object mergers and their observable emissions. I received my PhD in physics from Stony Brook University in 2008 under the supervision of Gerald E. Brown. Before joining the Physics and Astronomy department at Texas A&M in 2016, I performed postdoctoral research at the Technical University of Munich and the University of Washington. I study the nuclear microphysics of high-energy astrophysical phenomena through the low-energy realization of quantum chromodynamics, chiral effective field theory.