Speaker
Gianluca Colo'
(MI)
Description
Atomic nuclei constitute a formidable intellectual challenge for scientists who are
still striving to answer the fundamental question: how do the complex nuclear phe-
nomena emerge from the interactions between the neutrons and protons?
In this contribution, I will first give a brief survey of the status of nuclear structure
theory, and emphasise the role of Density Functional Theory (DFT). After showing
some applications of the most recent DFT-based approaches to selected nuclear
properties, I will focus on two specific aspects.
I will discuss nuclear giant resonances, and their importance to deduce from the
experiment the so-called nuclear equation of state (EoS), that is, the relationship
between pressure and density in nuclear matter. A link with neutron stars will be
provided.
I will also discuss the recent progress in the field of spin and spin-isospin excitations
and propose some new strategy to calibrate DFT models on ab initio calculations.
