Building a universal nuclear energy density functional

Abstract

This talk describes a new project in SciDAC II in the area of low-energy nuclear physics. The motivation and goals of the SciDAC are presented as well as an outline of the theoretical and computational methodology that will be employed. An important motivation is to have more accurate and reliable predictions of nuclear properties including their binding energies and low-energy reaction rates. The theoretical basis is provided by density functional theory, which the only available theory that can be systematically applied to all nuclei. However, other methodologies based on wave function methods are needed to refine the functionals and to make applications to dynamic processes.