202 FRIB Graduate Brochure
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Morten Hjorth-Jensen<br />
Professor of Physics<br />
Keywords: Nuclear Many-Body Theory, Computational Physics Machine<br />
Learning and Quantum Computing<br />
Theoretical Nuclear Physics<br />
About<br />
• MS, Science, Norwegian University of Science and<br />
Technology 1988<br />
• PhD, Theoretical Nuclear Physics, University of Oslo<br />
1993<br />
• Joined the laboratory in January 2012<br />
• hjensen@frib.msu.edu<br />
Research<br />
I am a theoretical physicist with an interest in manybody<br />
theory in general, and the nuclear many-body<br />
problem and nuclear structure problems in particular.<br />
This means that I study various methods for solving<br />
either Schroedinger’s equation or Dirac’s equation for<br />
many interacting particles, spanning from algorithmic<br />
aspects to the mathematical properties of such methods.<br />
The latter also leads to a strong interest in computational<br />
physics as well as computational aspects of quantum<br />
mechanical methods. A large fraction of my work, in close<br />
collaboration with colleagues at the <strong>FRIB</strong> and worldwide,<br />
is devoted to a better understanding of various quantum<br />
mechanical algorithms. This activity leads to strong<br />
overlaps with other scientific fields. Although the main<br />
focus has been and is on many-body methods for nuclear<br />
structure problems, I have also done, and continue to do,<br />
research on solid state physics systems in addition to<br />
studies of the mathematical properties of various manybody<br />
methods. The latter includes also algorithms from<br />
Quantum Information Theories and their applicability to<br />
for example nuclear physics problems. Studies of Machine<br />
Learning algorithms applied to the nuclear many-body<br />
problem as well as tools to analyze experimental data<br />
from <strong>FRIB</strong>, are also topics I work on.<br />
To understand why matter is stable, and thereby shed<br />
light on the limits of nuclear stability, is one of the<br />
overarching aims and intellectual challenges of basic<br />
research in nuclear physics and science. To relate the<br />
stability of matter to the underlying fundamental forces<br />
and particles of nature as manifested in nuclear matter is<br />
central to present and planned rare isotope facilities.<br />
Examples of important properties of nuclear systems that<br />
can reveal information about these topics are masses (and<br />
thereby binding energies) and density distributions of nuclei.<br />
These are quantities that convey important information<br />
on the shell structure of nuclei with their pertinent magic<br />
numbers and shell closures, or the eventual disappearance<br />
of the latter away from the valley of stability. My research<br />
projects, in strong collaboration with other theorists and<br />
experimentalists at <strong>FRIB</strong>, aim at understanding some of<br />
the above topics. These projects span from computational<br />
quantum mechanics with various many-body methods, via<br />
studies of quantum information theories and their relevance<br />
to studies of nuclear many-body systems to machinelearning<br />
applied to the same problems as well as ways to<br />
interpret data from nuclear physics experiments.<br />
Topics discussed here for possible thesis projects aim at<br />
giving you knowledge and insights about the physics of<br />
nuclear systems as well as an in depth understanding of<br />
many-body methods. This includes also developing your<br />
competences and skills on highly relevant computational<br />
methods, from central numerical algorithms to highperformance<br />
computing methods. The following list<br />
reflects some of our research possibilities:<br />
• Computational quantum mechanics, computational<br />
physics, and many-body methods applied to<br />
studies of nuclear systems, with strong overlaps<br />
with experiment<br />
• Development of time-dependent many-body<br />
theories of relevance for fusion and fission studies<br />
• Quantum information theories and nuclear manybody<br />
problems<br />
• Studies of dense nuclear matter and neutron stars<br />
• Machine-learning algorithms applied to nuclear<br />
many-body methods<br />
• Machine-learning algorithms applied to the<br />
analysis of nuclear physics experiments<br />
Theoretical nuclear physics is a highly interdisciplinary<br />
field, with well-developed links to numerical mathematics,<br />
computational physics, high-performance computing,<br />
and computational science and data science, including<br />
modern topics like quantum information theories,<br />
statistical data analysis, and machine-learning. The skills<br />
and competences you acquire through your studies<br />
give you an education that prepares you for solving and<br />
studying the scientific problems of the 21 st century.<br />
Selected Publications<br />
Morten Hjorth-Jensen, M.P. Lombardo and U. van Kolck,<br />
Lecture Notes in Physics, Editors M. Hjorth-Jensen, M.P.<br />
Lombardo and U. van Kolck, Volume 936, (2017).<br />
Morten Hjorth-Jensen, Computational Physics, an<br />
Introduction, IoP, Bristol, UK, 2019<br />
Fei Yuan, Sam Novario, Nathan Parzuchowski, Sarah<br />
Reimann, Scott K. Bogner and Morten Hjorth-Jensen., First<br />
principle calculations of quantum dot systems, Journal of<br />
Chemical Physics, 147,164109 (2017).<br />
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