Atomic nuclei constitute more than 99% of visible matter. Thus, an accurate description of nuclear systems is central to our understanding of the universe.
The complicated many-body dynamics of these nuclear systems may be derived from the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), where nuclei appear as complex systems of neutrons and protons (nucleons), composed of more fundamental particles known as quarks and gluons.
More exotic matter can also be formed by varying the quark content. The lightest examples are the lambda and sigma hyperons, which contain one strange quark. These hyperons, however, are short-lived and thus difficult to study experimentally on earth, although they are postulated to exist within astrophysical objects like neutron stars. Lattice QCD (LQCD) gives us a novel window into the dynamics of these elusive systems by providing a solution to the QCD equations of motion via high-dimensional numerical integration.
This project will study the coupled lambda-nucleon and sigma-nucleon systems using LQCD. The results will help to understand discrepancies in the measured lifetime of light bound systems containing hyperons, to constrain the nuclear equation of state that governs neutron star structure and merger dynamics, and to enable predictions relevant for microscopy at the femtometer scale.
University of Barcelona, Spain ;
Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany;
Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany.