A new tool in nuclear physics: Nuclear lattice simulations

摘要

In the last years, chiral effective field theory has been successfullydeveloped for and applied to systems with few nucleons. Here, I present a newapproach for ab initio calculations of nuclei that combines these precise andsystematic forces with Monte Carlo simulation techniques that allow for exactsolutions of the nuclear A-body problem. A short introduction of this method isgiven and a few assorted results concerning the spectrum and structure of 12Cand 16O are presented. The framework further allows one to study the propertiesof nuclei in worlds that have fundamental parameters different from the ones inNature. This allows for a physics test of the anthropic principle by addressingthe question how strongly the generation of the life-relevant elements dependson the light quark masses and the electromagnetic fine structure constant.