10th International Workshop on “Quantum Phase Transitions in Nuclei and Many-Body Systems”

Abstract

The 10th International workshop on “Quantum Phase Transitions in Nuclei and Many-Body Systems” was held in Dubrovnik, Croatia, from 11 to 15 July 2022. This series of workshops, initiated by Rod Clark (Berkeley) and Rick Casten (Yale), was initially aimed at shape-phase transitions and critical point phenomena in atomic nuclei. It started in Berkeley in 2004 and continued in Camerino (2005), Athens (2006), Sofia (2007), Istanbul (2009), Darmstadt (2012), Seville (2014), Prague (2016), and Padova (2018). The 10th edition was organized by Prof. Dario Vretenar from the University of Zagreb, Croatia, and Prof. Amiram Leviatan from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. The meeting was also held in honor of Prof. Francesco Iachello (Yale), a pioneer of theoretical studies of quantum phase transitions in nuclei, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. More than 70 scientists from all over the world convened for an informative and exciting workshop at the Inter University Center, an international consortium of 170 member universities, located in the historical and charming center of the city of Dubrovnik (Figure 1). A notable exception were scientists from China and Japan, who could not attend because of travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, experimental and theoretical nuclear physicists, as well as theorists working in interdisciplinary fields, held a very successful workshop and kept the informal spirit of lively discussions that represents the true success of these meetings. We note, in particular, the participation of a great number of young scientists, many of whom, after a long break from on-site meetings caused by the pandemic, finally had the opportunity to present their most recent results. Quantum phase transitions (QPTs), the subject matter of the workshop, are structural changes in a quantum system induced by variation of control parameters in the Hamiltonian. Such changes are manifested empirically in atomic nuclei in the form of the evolution of shapes as a function of nucleon number, and coexistence of different shapes in the same system. Nuclei, as composites of protons and neutrons, provide a unique laboratory for studying QPTs in a mesoscopic (finite) system governed by strong interaction. The conference program was structured into eight topical sessions organized by conveners: “Symmetries and QPTs in Nuclei” (A. Leviatan and J.M. Arias); “Empirical Aspects of QPTs in Nuclei” (N. Pietralla and R.F. Casten); “Transitional Nuclei and Shape Coexistence” (J.E. Garcia Ramos and K. Nomura); “Density Functional and Beyond-Mean-Field Approaches to QPTs in Nuclei” (D. Vretenar and T. Niksic); “Novel Aspects and Signatures of QPTs in Nuclei” (L. Fortunato and A. Vitturi); “Symmetries of Interacting Boson and/or Fermion Systems” (P. Van isacker and J. Jolie); “Clustering and Shape-Phase Transitions in Nuclei and other Physical Systems” (R. Bijker and F. Perez-Bernal); and “Excited-State QPTs” (P. Cejnar and P. Stransky). Talks addressing QPTs and shape coexistence have focused on nuclei near shell-closure, notably near neutron number 60 (Zr, Sr isotopes), the Sn and Pb regions, explored by vari-