Speaker: Dean Lee (Michigan State University)

Title: New tools for the quantum many-body problem

Abstract: I discuss three new methods for the quantum many-body problem.  The first is the pinhole trace algorithm 
for first principles calculations of nuclear thermodynamics.  I present lattice Monte Carlo results for the 
phase diagram of symmetric nuclear matter.  The second is the eigenvector continuation method for 
extrapolation and interpolation of quantum wave functions.  I will show how it can be used as a fast 
emulator for quantum many-body calculations and a resummation method for divergent perturbative 
expansions.  The third is the rodeo algorithm for quantum computing.  This method is able to construct 
general eigenvectors of quantum Hamiltonians as well as the energy spectrum, transition matrix elements, 
and linear response functions.

Bio: Dean Lee received an A.B. in Physics in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Theoretical Particle Physics in 1998, both from Harvard University. From 1998–2001, he joined the nuclear, particle, and gravitational theory group at the U Mass Amherst, for his postdoctoral research. Lee joined the North Carolina State University as an Assistant Professor in 2001, becoming Associate Professor in 2007, and Full Professor in 2012. In 2017, he moved to the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) at Michigan State University as a Professor, jointly appointed in the MSU Department of Physics and Astronomy. In 2014, he was inducted as a fellow of the APS "for the development of lattice effective field theory as a novel approach to the nuclear few- and many-body problem, and for applications of this technique to the structure of the Hoyle state". In 2018, Lee served as the Chair of the Topical Group on Few-Body Systems and Multiparticle Dynamics of the American Physical Society (APS). Since 2018 he has been involved in the establishment of the Advanced Studies Gateway at FRIB, an initiative that brings together researchers, innovators, creative thinkers, artists, and performers from all fields. Dean's research interests include lattice effective field theory, superfluidity, nuclear clustering, nuclear structure from first principles calculations, ab initio scattering and inelastic reactions, and properties of nuclei as seen through electroweak probes.