Density Functional Theory

George Bertsch
University of Washington

I will report on new efforts under way to find a density functional theory
of nuclei that would achieve for nuclear physics what has been accomplished
in condensed matter and quantum chemistry. There DFT has been enormously
successful and has become a paradigm for predictive theory.  For nuclear
physics two challenges are the theory of nuclear binding energies, needed in
astrophysics, and of low-energy reactions, needed for nuclear energy and
security applications.  I will discuss the present status of the DFT-based
theory and the extensions needed for applications.  See
http://www.scidac.gov/physics/unedf.html.