Place: Room 513, Main Building, Beihang University

Title: Nuclear Quantum Shape Phase Transitions

Speaker: Professor Dario Vretenar

He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Zagreb University, Croatia in 1988. From 1988 to 1991, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow in Yale University (US) and Bologna University (Italy). He was a Humboldt research fellow from 1991 to 1993 in TUM, Munich (Germany). Since 1993, he has worked in Zagreb University and became a full professor in 2001. He is a leading figure in theoretical nuclear physics in Croatia and was elected Academician of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2012. He is mainly interested in nuclear many-body physics and weak interactions and has published about 200 referee articles.

Abstract: In recent years quantum shape phase transitions have attracted the interest of both theorists and experimentalists in nuclear structure physics. These transitions, which are accessed at zero temperature by variation of a non-thermal control parameter, can influence bulk properties, excitation spectra and electromagnetic transition rates. Quantum phase transitions (QPT) occur as a result of competing ground state phases, such as nuclear equilibrium shapes. An introduction to nuclear QPT will be presented and illustrated by specific examples of first and second-order QPTs in medium-heavy nuclei, both from the macroscopic perspective and from a microscopic approach