Celebrating 75 Years of the Nuclear Shell Model and Maria Goeppert-Mayer

Jul 19, 2024, 9:00 AM → Jul 21, 2024, 4:30 PM US/Central

Physics Division Auditorium (Argonne National Laboratory )

Anna McCoy, Patrick Fasano, Chiara Bissolotti (Argonne National Laboratory), Nirupama Sensharma

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the nuclear shell model, for which Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Hans Jensen won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. In commemoration of this historic anniversary, Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago hosted a symposium from July 19 to 21, 2024, dedicated to celebrating the legacy and enduring impact of the nuclear shell model and Maria Goeppert-Mayer's contributions to science. The symposium brought together researchers at all stages of their careers whose research descends from the development of the shell model. Topics presented ranged from historical overviews of 75 years of progress to ongoing research at the forefront of nuclear physics.

To commemorate the impact Maria Goeppert-Mayer has had on generations of women physicists, a session was dedicated to celebrating women and other underrepresented populations in physics. In an effort to continue her great legacy, discussions highlighted the accomplishments of women in physics as well as provided opportunities for dialogue about current challenges still faced by women and underrepresented minorities in physics and how we, as a community, can pursue a more equitable and diverse field.

This event was supported by:

Image of Maria Goeppert-Mayer from the University of Chicago Photographic Archive, [apf1-10468], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Fri, July 19

Introductory Session

Convener: Anna McCoy

1 Welcome

Speaker: Kawtar Hafidi (Argonne National Laboratory)

2 A brief history of a big idea for a small thing

Speaker: Calvin Johnson (San Diego State University)

SM75_Johnson.pdf

3 Development and Applications of the ab initio No-Core Shell Model

Speaker: James Vary (Iowa State University)

SM75_Vary.pdf

10:40 AM Coffee break

Colloquium

Convener: Anna McCoy

4 Maria Goeppert Mayer – From Göttingen to the Nobel Prize in Physics

The talk will present an overview of Maria Goeppert-Mayer’s life and her accomplishments in physics. Being trained in quantum theory at the famous Göttingen school of Max Born, she became friends with many of the most influential physicists of the early 20th century. Albeit, as a woman and the wife of Joseph Mayer, she was considered unemployable in the United States, after her emigration from Germany. Nevertheless, she continued working as unpaid lecturer and made several substantial contributions to atomic and molecular physics. Collaborating with Edward Teller during World War II, she shifted her focus to nuclear physics, particularly to the field of nuclear astrophysics. Her research on the correlation between stellar abundances and the numbers of protons or neutrons in a nucleus, led her to the identification of magic numbers. Despite being dismissed by many physicists, her exploration into "numerology" ultimately led to the recognition of the shell structure of the nucleus. In 1963, she was honored with the Nobel Prize for her groundbreaking discovery.

Speaker: Michael Wiescher (University of Notre Dame)

12:00 PM Lunch

Invited Talks

Convener: Donald Geesaman

5 Quest for a comprehensive shell model to track the evolution in nuclear structure

Speaker: Rebeka Lubna (FRIB)

SM75_Lubna.pdf

6 Overview of the History of the Nuclear Shell Model and Personal Perspectives on its Future

Speaker: Jerry Draayer (LSU)

7 Microscopic effective interactions for the nuclear shell model

Speaker: Nadya Smirnova (GANIL)

SM75_Smirnova.pdf

8 The Nilsson Model and Medium-Mass Nuclei

Speaker: Heather Crawford (LBNL)

SM75_Crawford.pdf

2:40 PM Coffee break

Invited Talks

Convener: Robert Wiringa

9 Towards a microscopic understanding of the shell model: status and open questions

Speaker: Ragnar Stroberg (ND)

SM75_Stroberg.pdf

10 Applications of the ab initio no-core shell model

Speaker: Petr Navratil (TRIUMF)

SM75_Navratil.pdf

11 Large-scale shell-model calculations, quasi-particle shell model, and their applications

Speaker: Noritaka Shimizu (University of Tsukuba)

4:15 PM Coffee break

Invited Talks

Convener: Patrick Fasano (Argonne National Laboratory)

12 Structure and reaction observables of drip-line nuclei with the Gamow Shell Model

Speaker: Nicolas Michel (Institute of Modern Physics, Lanzhou)

SM75_Michel.pdf

13 Shell Model for double beta decay

Speaker: Mihai Horoi (Central Michigan University)

SM75_Horoi.pdf

14 Pushing the limits of the shell model towards the continuum

Speaker: Kostas Kravvaris (LLNL)

Sat, July 20

Invited Talks

Convener: Takaharu Otsuka

15 Celebrating Maria Goeppert twice: shell model and double beta decay

Speaker: Javier Menendez (University of Barcelona)

SM75_menendez.pdf

16 The shell structure of the neutron-rich Ca isotopes

Speaker: Pieter Doornenbal (RIKEN)

SM75_Doornnebal.pdf

17 Deconstructing the $g_A$ puzzle within the realistic shell model

Speaker: Luigi Coraggio (Università degli Studi "Luigi Vanvitelli" - INFN Naples)

SM75_Coraggio.pdf

18 Ab initio studies on muon capture to probe neutrinoless double-beta decay

Speaker: Lotta Jokiniemi (TRIUMF)

SM75_Jokiniemi.pdf

10:40 AM Coffee break

Invited Talks

Convener: Matthew Mumpower (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

19 Shell model meets in-beam gamma-ray spectroscopy on both sides of the nuclear chart

Speaker: Alexandra Gade (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University)

SM75_Gade.pdf

20 Nuclear Data in the Cosmos from the Interacting Shell Model

Speaker: Sofia Karampagia (Grand Valley State University)

SM75_Karampagia.pdf

21 Frontiers in explosive nuclear astrophysics

Speaker: Gavin Lotay (University of Surrey)

SM75_Lotay.pdf

12:15 PM Lunch

1:00 PM Travel to Chicago

2:00 PM Coffee break

Celebrating Women in Physics: CWP

Conveners: Chiara Bissolotti (Argonne National Laboratory), Young-Kee Kim (University of Chicago)

22 Welcome

Speakers: Chiara Bissolotti (Argonne National Laboratory), Young-Kee Kim (University of Chicago)

23 No-Core Shell Model densities and ab initio effective potentials for elastic nucleon-nucleus scattering

Speaker: Charlotte Elster (Ohio University)

SM75_Elster.pdf

24 No Nus is Good News: From the Origin of Matter, to the Rarest Radioactive Decay in the Universe

Speaker: Leslie Rogers (Argonne National Laboratory)

25 Journey into Biological Materials

Speaker: Alison Patteson (Syracuse University)

26 Nuclear Issues in National Security

Speaker: Rhiannon Hutton (Institute for Defense Analyses)

4:15 PM Coffee break

Celebrating Women in Physics: Panel discussion

Convener: Young-Kee Kim (University of Chicago)

Celebrating Women in Physics: Small group discussions

Poster Session

7:00 PM Conference Dinner

Sun, July 21

Invited Talks

Convener: Christopher Fasano (Monmouth College)

27 Spin-Orbit Splittings in the Presence of Weak Binding

Speaker: Benjamin Kay (Argonne National Laboratory)

28 Isospin Symmetric Island of Inversion at the N=Z line

Speaker: Frederic Nowacki (Institut Pluridisciplinaire Hubert Curien, Strasbourg)

SM75_Nowacki.pdf

29 Some aspects of the quenching of single-particle strength

Speaker: Augusto Macchiavelli (Oak Ridge National Laboratory)

10:45 AM Coffee break

Invited Talks

Convener: Garrett King

30 Ab Initio Investigation of Radiative Capture and Electron-Positron Pair Production

Speaker: Peter Gysbers (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University)

SM75_Gysbers.pdf

31 Beta decay recoil-order terms for studies of physics beyond the Standard Model

Speaker: Grigor Sargsyan (Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Michigan State University)

SM75_Sargsyan.pdf

32 Ab initio theory towards reliable neutrinoless double beta decay nuclear matrix element

Speaker: Antoine Belley (TRIUMF)

SM75_Belley.pdf

12:15 PM Lunch

Invited Talks

Convener: Mark Caprio (University of Notre Dame)

33 Quantum Computing and the Shell Model

Speaker: Jon Engel (University of North Carolina)

SM75_Engel.pdf

34 Neural network quantum states for the nuclear many-body problem

Speaker: Alessandro Lovato (Argonne National Laboratory)

SM75_Lovato.pdf

35 A weak entanglement approximation for nuclear structure: proton-neutron approximate shell model

Speaker: Oliver Gorton (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)

SM75_Gorton.pdf

2:30 PM Coffee break

Invited Talks

Convener: Nirupama Sensharma

36 Elucidating the Ge nuclei with the shell model

Speaker: Erin Peters (University of Kentucky)

SM75_Peters.pdf

37 Level Densities and Gamma-Ray Strength Functions in Heavy Nuclei with Shell-Model Monte Carlo

Speaker: Dallas DeMartini (Yale University)

SM75_DeMartini.pdf

38 Nuclear shapes studied by Monte Carlo shell model calculations

Speaker: Yusuke Tsunoda (Center for Nuclear Study, University of Tokyo)