The theory group represents a broad effort to interpret and predict experimental data mostly in nuclear and hadronic physics and in domains at the interface such as nuclear astrophysics. Our effort predominantly ranges from quark-gluon dynamics to few-nucleon systems to heavy nuclei and on to stars. The expertise of the group in many-body theories and techniques naturally leads us to explore other interdisciplinary connections such as ultra-cold gases of bosonic and fermionic atoms.

Strong interactions are described in the Standard Model by Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), where the dynamics of quarks and gluons becomes non-perturbative as energies decrease. At distances larger than a tenth of a femtometer or so, hadrons emerge as relevant degrees of freedom. The central goal of our theory effort is to understand how hadrons, especially nucleons, interact to form nuclei and influence the larger structure of the Universe.