NSAC LPR 2007 Town Meeting

Status of Theory Support

Xin-Nian WangLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

2002 LRP Recommendation

• Part of Recommendation I of 2002 Long Range Plan:

“Significantly increase funding for nuclear theory, which is essential for developing the full potential of the scientific program.”

Charge for 2003 NSAC Theory Subcommittee:

“NSAC is asked to review and evaluate current NSF and DOE supported efforts in nuclear theory and identify strategic plans to ensure a strong U.S. nuclear theory program under various funding scenarios….”

2003 Theory Subcommittee

Joseph Carlson (LANL)Barry Holstein (U. Massachusetts)

Xiangdong Ji (U. Maryland) Gail McLaughlin (NCSU)

Berndt Mueller (Duke) - ChairWitold Nazarewicz (UT/ORNL)

Krishna Rajagopal (MIT)Winston Roberts (ODU/Jlab)

Xin-Nian Wang (LBNL)Richard Casten (Ex-Officio)

“A Vision for Nuclear Theory” transmitted to DOE and NSF (10/2003)

http://www.sc.doe.gov/production/henp/np/nsac/docs/NSAC_Theory_Report_Final.pdf

Guiding Principles and Aims

• Ensure future excellence of nuclear theory in the U.S.

• Maximize effectiveness of nuclear theory research

• Develop increased manpower required to address scientific opportunities and programmatic needs

• Attract, train, and retain best possible talent

• Build program accountability into major new initiatives

Broad community input

• Survey of nuclear theory PIs & co-PIs– Achievements, opportunities & needs

• Questionnaire to experimental PIs– Needs from experimental point of view

Recommendations: Overview

• Postdoctoral prize fellowships• Graduate fellowship program• Enhanced OJI awards• Topical centers• Centers of excellence• Large scale computing initiatives• Elimination of NSF/DOE disparity• Increased use of bridge funding• Leveraged support for sabbaticals• Nuclear theory at top-ranked universities

Workforce issues

• Postdoctoral prize fellowships:– 5 awards annually for 3-year terms

– National selection committee (Hubble model)

– Postdocs select host institution

– Raise visibility of best young nuclear theorists

– Enhance early career development

Under consideration ?

• Graduate fellowship program:– Seniors or 1st or 2nd year graduate students

– Selection by national committee

Considered in broader context (Education Report)

Topical Centers

• 2-3 centers per year to be awarded competitively on the basis of scientific quality and relevance to the national program, at $300-500k each.– Centers to function as hubs of wider networks.– Centers could involve staff/faculty bridge funding.– Review and possible competitive renewal after 5 years.– Steady state: 10 topical centers in maximal scenario, creating 30-50

new staff/faculty and postdoc positions. (Unrequested) proposals have been submitted to DOE and one

is founded which is considered in spirit a topic center (EBAC) Theory Groups at National Labs were asked to submit LOI

(2006) no request for proposals yet

Centers of Excellence

• Interdisciplinary centers at universities or national labs targeting areas benefiting from intense interactions with scholars from other communities (astrophysics, CM physics, HE physics, etc.).– Broad and curiosity driven research agenda, flexible structure.– Expectation of leverage.– 3-5 centers nationally.– Review and competitive renewal after 5 years.

Currently dormant.

Computing

• Aggressive investment in computational nuclear science with the goal of solving problems of core importance to the physics program: – Urgently needed investments include >10 teraflops scale national

facilities to capitalize on immediate scientific opportunities: precise lattice QCD calculations of the structure of hadrons and dense matter, realistic simulations of supernova dynamics, and ab initio solutions of quantum many-body problems.

– Start longer term planning for >100 teraflops facility.– Utilize synergies with HEP initiatives.

Very positive agency response: $500k “pilot” in FY04 & 05 in coorperation with HEP. $500k commitment in FY06 presidential budget. Continuation into future under consideration.

NSF Theory Program

• Elimination of NSF/DOE disparity ($70K/PI for NSF vs. $110/PI for DOE)– Recent new career proposals founded at $100K–

• Over all increase in theory funding– 5% increase for several years planned

Table 2 – FY05

Universities Natl. Labs Total

Hadron structure 3749 4155 7949

Nuclear structure 2654 2165 4819

Hot nuclear matter 2726 3456 6182

Nuclear astrophysics 526 1852 2378

Beyond SM 348 348

INT Prog’s 1,129 1,129

Total 11132 11628 22760

Table 2: DOE Nuclear Theory Support by Subfield (FY06 in k$)

Also $100K in grid computing, nuclear data $5099K and others $113K

Nuclear Theory Funding

Nuclear Theory Funding

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

K$ NSF

DOE

Funding in QCD theory

Nucleon Structure Theory Funding

0100020003000400050006000700080009000

10000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

$K

Lab

Univ

Hot QCD Theory Funding

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

6000

7000

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

$K

Lab

Univ

Manpower

Permanent Staff

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Nat Lab Perm

Univ Perm

NSF Perm

Manpower

Graduate Student

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Lab Student

Univ Students

NSF Student

Manpower

Temporary Staff

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Nat Lab temp

Univ's temp

NSF Temp

Difficult time ahead

A personal view

• In order to:– Successfully execute scientific program as

outlined in the LRP– Fully realize the scientific opportunities– Achieve the milestones set in the performance

measures

• It is imperative:– Significantly increase the funding for nuclear

theory from the current inadequate level– Provide additional funding for target

opportunities (via topic centers) critical to the experimental program

Opportunities I

Computational challenges

• Lattice QCD:– Methodology (improved actions, domain wall fermions, chiral

extrapolations) is in place to calculate important observables with 5% precision or better;

– $1/Mflops hardware makes 10+ Tflops facility affordable now;– Wide range of program relevant questions are accessible.

• Supernova simulations:– Two- and three dimensional simulations of core collapse supernovae

with full neutrino transport.

• Many-body theory:– Exact solutions of correlated many-body quantum systems

Opportunities II

• JLab and RHIC phenomenology– Relativistic reaction theory for multiparticle final states– Models of hadron structure incl. spin & orbital ang. mom.– Realistic theory of parton-medium interaction– Viscous 3-D hydro transport– Thermalization of gauge fields and quarks

• Nuclear structure theory– Microscopic calc’s for neutron-rich & large nuclei– Chiral EFT for A > 4 nuclei– Universal microscopic energy density functional– Integration of nuclear structure and reaction theory– Microscopic basis for large amplitude collective motion

Opportunities III

• Nuclear astrophysics– Quantitative theory of type-II supernovae

– Nuclear physics of gamma-ray bursts

– Neutrino astrophysics

– Neutron star structure

• Fundamental symmetries and beyond the SM– EDM limits, properties and cosmic baryon asymmetry

– Reduction of hadron and nuclear structure uncertainties for EW observables (EDM’s, 0 decay, -decay)

– Few-body calc’s for nuclear PV observables

Impact on Milestones

• Almost all milestones in Performance Measures report have an essential theory component.

• 9 milestones concern exclusively theoretical research.

• Achievement of milestones is primarily related to size of theory “workforce”; in some cases to hardware.

• Choices will depend on priorities of expt’l program and on implementation of cuts by the agency.

• FY06 budget has an immediate, disastrous impact on graduate student recruitment and postdoc retention.

Milestones: An Example

Milestone (2009)

"Perform realistic three-dimensional numerical simulations to describe the medium and conditions required by the collective flow measured at

RHIC"

Necessary components:

a) Initial conditions:

- shattering of the color glass condensate- gluon saturation effects in initial momentum distributions- thermalization of the initial phase-space distribution- thermalization time scale and equilibration mechanism

Milestone Example (cnt’d)

b) Hydrodynamical evolution:

- solution of (3+1)-dimensional relativistic Euler equations- inclusion of transport effects (shear and bulk viscosity) by coupling to transport equations for viscous stress tensor- test different parametrizations of EOS- realistic parametrization of EOS from lattice QCD- EOS parametrizations with chemical non-equilibrium- systematic parameter studies (b, s, A)

Milestone Example (cnt’d)

c) Hadronic final-state transport:

- match hydro to hadronic cascade models- test afterburner by comparing to measured yields vs. (s, A) - description of resonance decays after freeze-out

d) Extracting observables from hydro:

- hadron spectra, photon spectra, elliptic and radial flow- HBT correlations for hadrons and photons as function of (kT, , …)- study of effects of expanding medium on hard probes (charm flow, jet quenching)- realistic treatment of hadron formation by quark coalescence- and much more …..