Tomic nuclei are among nature's most fascinating, and at the same time, most confounding objects. This is mainly due to the complicated nature of the strong nuclear interaction. The fundamental theory of the strong interaction is Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), which describes interactions of quarks and gluons. While deceptively easy to write down, QCD is hard to solve. Describing nuclei based on QCD is even more challenging because nucleons are composite objects that have a complicated quark and gluon substructure themselves.
The interplay of the complicated nuclear interactions with quantum-mechanical many-body effects gives rise to a rich variety of nuclear phenomena. This is especially true for exotic nuclei in the more remote regions of the nuclear chart. These nuclei are the focus of the experimental program at FRIB, and a reliable theoretical framework is required to analyze and guide future experiments.
