Kolloquium: Phan Thành Nam (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München): Existence and non-existence of minimizers in the liquid drop model

Existence and non-existence of minimizers in the liquid drop model – Vortragender: Phan Thành Nam, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München – Einladender: H. Schulz-Baldes

The liquid drop model for atomic nuclei goes back to Gamow’s theory in the 1930s. Although it is widely used in the physics literature to explain qualitatively the critical mass in nuclear fission reactions, many of its fundamental properties remains unknown rigorously. I will discuss some mathematical results on the existence and nonexistence of minimizers, as well as the connection of these results to the ionization problem for atoms. The talk is based on recent joint work with Rupert L. Frank.