Nuclear, Particle, and Weak Interaction Physics of the Big Bang and Stellar Collapse

大爆炸和恒星塌缩的核、粒子和弱相互作用物理学

基本信息

批准号：
1614864
负责人：
George Fuller
金额：
$ 33万
依托单位：
University of California-San Diego
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Continuing Grant
财政年份：
2016
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2016-07-01 至 2020-06-30
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1614864&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Nuclear Particle Weak Interaction Physics

项目摘要

The research supported in this Project will provide insights into how atomic nuclei and radiation behave in extreme conditions of temperature and density. In turn, this research will seek to leverage these insights to provide important clues about the nature of elementary particles, the mysterious neutrinos in particular, and about how the elements are synthesized in nature, e.g., in the fiery interiors of stars. These are grand science questions and a significant part of the world's physics and astronomy endeavor is directed toward answering them. For example, recent experiments have revealed some of the properties of the ghost-like neutrinos, and planned experiments seek to uncover more. An objective of this Project will be to better understand the implications of these properties for the grand questions described above. This will require honing humanity's fundamental theory of nature, i.e., Quantum Mechanics, into a tool capable of modeling the behavior of neutrinos in the extreme environments provided by the cosmos. Another key product of this Project will be the training of young nuclear physicists, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. The research supported in this Project will be directed toward probing the fundamental physics of neutrinos and nuclei by exploiting the intersection of exciting new developments in nuclear physics and neutrino physics on the one hand, with rapidly advancing probes of astrophysical environments on the other. A key issue in this enterprise will be studying how neutrinos interact in dense matter and how these interactions may cause neutrinos to change their flavors (e.g., electron type neutrinos changing to tau type and vice versa) and/or their spins (e.g., left-handed to right-handed, and vice versa - if neutrinos are Majorana in character this is tantamount to changing neutrinos to antineutrinos). This is a fiercely nonlinear problem because neutrino flavor/spin determines how neutrinos interact, and how they interact determines how flavors/spin change. To these ends, the P.I. and his graduate and undergraduate students will work toward: (1) Understanding and modeling the quantum kinetic equations which govern neutrino flavor and spin evolution in a general medium; (2) Constructing large-scale numerical simulations of neutrino flavor/spin evolution in various supernova, stellar collapse, and compact object merger environments and assessing the feedback of this neutrino flavor physics on the prospects for the synthesis of nuclei in these sites; (3) Understanding nuclear structure, neutrino-nucleus interactions, nuclear partition functions, and weak strength distributions in high temperature environments.

该项目支持的研究将提供有关原子核和辐射如何在温度和密度极端条件下行为的见解。反过来，这项研究将寻求利用这些见解，以提供有关基本颗粒本质，尤其是神秘的中微子的重要线索，以及在自然界中如何合成元素，例如在恒星的火热内部。这些是宏伟的科学问题，世界物理学的很大一部分，天文学努力是针对回答它们的。例如，最近的实验揭示了类似幽灵的中微子的某些特性，并计划进行的实验试图发现更多。该项目的一个目的是更好地理解这些属性对上述大问题的含义。这将需要将人类的基本自然理论（即量子力学）磨练为能够在宇宙提供的极端环境中建模中微子的行为的工具。该项目的另一个关键产品将是在研究生和本科水平上对年轻核物理学家的培训。该项目支持的研究将用于探测中微子和核的基本物理，一方面利用核物理学和中微子物理学的令人兴奋的新发展的相交，另一方面迅速对天体物理环境进行了迅速前进。 A key issue in this enterprise will be studying how neutrinos interact in dense matter and how these interactions may cause neutrinos to change their flavors (e.g., electron type neutrinos changing to tau type and vice versa) and/or their spins (e.g., left-handed to right-handed, and vice versa - if neutrinos are Majorana in character this is tantamount to changing neutrinos to antineutrinos).这是一个强烈的非线性问题，因为中微子风味/自旋决定了中微子的相互作用以及它们如何相互作用决定了风味/自旋的变化。对这些目的，P.I.他的毕业生和本科生将致力于：（1）理解和建模量子动力学方程，这些方程控制了一般培养基中中微子风味和自旋进化；（2）在各种超新星，出色的崩溃和紧凑的对象合并环境中构建中微子风味/自旋进化的大规模数值模拟，并评估这种中微子风味物理学的反馈，这些物理学在这些地点合成核的前景；（3）在高温环境中了解核结构，中微子核相互作用，核分析功能和弱强度分布。