New avenues for nuclear energy density functionals

by Prof. Gianluca Colò (University of Milano)

Tuesday 20 Oct 2026, 10:30 → 12:00 Asia/Shanghai

5#/6th-603 - Meeting Room 603 (Science Building)

Abstract:

Nuclear Density Functional Theory (DFT) is a widely used theoretical framework that has been developed over several decades and accurately describes nuclear ground-state properties such as nuclear masses and radii, as well as excitation spectra, decay properties, reactions, and fission [1,2]. However, the results often depend on the specific Energy Density Functional (EDF) employed. EDFs that are equally successful for all observables have not yet emerged, and systematic ways to improve them remain unclear.
Bayesian inference techniques have recently emerged as powerful tools to better assess the biases, strengths, and weaknesses in the calibration of EDF parameters. I will discuss two recent works [3,4] aimed at using Bayesian inference for the time-even and time-odd terms of EDFs, and the possibility of reconciling terrestrial nuclear data and astrophysical observations in this way. These works have been carried out using Skyrme EDFs, but the prospects for further developing other functionals, such as those of the Fayans type [5], and applying Bayesian inference to them will also be addressed.
Most of these works rely on data on spherical nuclei. Given the importance of intrinsically deformed nuclei throughout the isotope chart, I will discuss a new method to efficiently calculate the ground state of nuclei with arbitrary deformation [6].

^{[1] Energy Density Functional Methods for Atomic Nuclei, edited by N. Schunck (IOP Publishing, 2019).
[2] G. Colò, Advances in Physics X, 5 (2020) 1740061.
[3] P. Klausner et al., Phys. Rev. C111, 014311 (2025); Phys. Rev. C114, 034320 (2026).
[4] Zidu Lin, Gianluca Colò, Andrew W. Steiner, and Amber Stinson, arXiv:2506.05564v3 [nucl-th]
[5] T. Naito et al., arXiv:2606.21491v1 [nucl-th].
[6] Alessandro Sala, Gianluca Colò, arXiv:2606.17652v1 [nucl-th].}

Biography:

Professor Gianluca Colò is a full professor in the department of physics, University of Milano. He received his PhD in 1992 at university of Milano. His research interests include nuclear structure physics, nuclear reactions, applications of nuclear theory methods to atomic and molecular physics. He has published more than 250 papers, which have received over 13,000 citations, and he has an h-index of 63 on Google Scholar. He has made many pioneering contributions to the field. He was among the first to develop a fully self-consistent charge-exchange RPA theory and a fully microscopic model based on Skyrme forces beyond the mean-field level. He was also among the first to establish the dielectric theorem in nuclear physics and to determine accurate values of the nuclear incompressibility. His self-consistent (quasi-)particle random-phase approximation codes have been published and are widely used by many research groups.

Host: Prof. Yifei Niu

Alternative online link：https://meeting.tencent.com/dm/XhG3qbfdOsrK

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