Alex Brown

My research in theoretical nuclear physics is motivated by broad questions in science: What are the fundamental particles of matter? What are the fundamental forces and their symmetries that govern their interactions? How were the elements formed during the evolution of the Universe? How do the simplicities observed in many-body systems emerge from their underlying microscopic properties?

The diverse activities within our nuclear theory group, coupled with the forefront experimental work in nuclear structure, nuclear reactions and nuclear astrophysics at NSCL provide the perfect environment for the development of new theoretical ideas. I also have collaborations with theoretical and experimental groups in many countries including Germany, France, England, Italy, Norway, Japan and South Africa.

I pursue the development of new analytical and computational tools for the description of nuclear structure, especially for nuclei far from stability. The basic theoretical tools include the configuration-interaction and energy-density functional methods. I work with collaborators to developed software for desktop computing as well for high-performance computing.

Specific topics of interest include: the structure of light nuclei, nuclei near the driplines, di-proton decay, proton and neutron densities, double β decay, tests of unitarity from Fermi β-decay, isospin non-conservation, anapole moments and parity non-conservation, neutrino-nucleus interactions, quantum chaos and the rapid-proton capture process in astrophysics.

# Education:
* 1974: Ph.D., State University of New York, Stony Brook