This book provides the first graduate-level, self-contained introduction to recent developments that lead to the formulation of the configuration-interaction approach for open quantum systems, the Gamow shell model, which provides a unitary description of quantum many-body system in different regimes of binding, and enables the unification in the description of nuclear structure and reactions. The Gamow shell model extends and generalizes the phenomenologically successful nuclear shell model to the domain of weakly-bound near-threshold states and resonances, offering a systematic tool to understand and categorize data on nuclear spectra, moments, collective excitations, particle and electromagnetic decays, clustering, elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections, and radiative capture cross sections of interest to astrophysics.

The approach is of interest beyond nuclear physics and based on general properties of quasi-stationary solutions of the Schrödinger equation - so-called Gamow states. For the benefit of graduate students and newcomers to the field, the quantum-mechanical fundamentals are introduced in some detail. The text also provides a historical overview of how the field has evolved from the early days of the nuclear shell model to recent experimental developments, in both nuclear physics and related fields, supporting the unified description. The text contains many worked examples and several numerical codes are introduced to allow the reader to test different aspects of the continuum shell model discussed in the book.

Autorentext

Nicolas Michel is a Chief Scientist in Nuclear Physics at the Institute of Modern Physics in Lanzhou, China. He obtained his MSc at the University of Strasbourg (France) and PhD at the University of Caen Normandy (France). He worked in several nuclear research centers, including the GANIL in Caen, Michigan State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Kyoto University and CEA, Center of Saclay. He was awarded a Standard Fellowship for Foreign Researchers by the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science. He is the author of 1 monograph and over 65 scientific papers. His research focuses on the study of resonant nuclei and molecules using the continuum shell model formalism. He also developed parallel codes to efficiently calculate many-body weakly bound and unbound nuclear states.

Marek Ploszajczak is a Director of Research at the French Atomic Energy Commission, currently working at the GANIL SPIRAL2 accelerator center, Caen (France). He obtained his MSc at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Poland) and PhD at the Rhenish Friedrich-Wilhelm University Bonn (Germany). He has held several research positions, including at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, SUNY Stony Brook, CRN Strasbourg, and GSI Darmstadt. In 1990, he became Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kraków (Poland). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. He was a co-Director of the French-U.S. Theory Institute for Physics with Exotic Nuclei at GANIL, Caen, and co-organizer of the Training in Advanced Low Energy Nuclear Theory initiative. He authored/edited 3 books, is the author of 7 monographs, and over 200 scientific papers. His research interests focuses on open quantum system theory of atomic nucleus. He worked on fragmentation theory and order-parameter fluctuations in finite systems, quantum theory of molecular dynamics for fermions, quantization of large amplitude non-linear theories by time-periodic solutions, and microscopic theory of rapidly rotating nuclei.

Inhalt

Introduction.- The Discrete Spectrum and the Continuum.- One- and Two-Particle Systems.- Shell Model in Berggren Basis.- No-Core Gamow Shell Model.- Unification of Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Reactions.- Collective Phenomena.- Conclusions and Open Problems.