Alfredo Poves awarded with the membership of the GSI Exotic Nuclei Community

Alfredo Poves.

The international jury of the GSI Exotic Nuclei Community has selected the professor of the Universidad Autonoma of Madrid, Alfredo Poves Paredes, to receive the membership award for his outstanding scientific work that has made the shell model the unbeatable theory to describe light and medium mass nuclei, during the NUSTAR meeting the past 3th of March.

The exploration of the nuclear terra incognita, i.e. of the many exotic nuclei far-off stability, has been the driving force of much research in recent years and is the major motivation for the operational and future radioactive ion-beam facilities. The tremendous experimental progress witnessed in recent years has been supplemented and was even often guided and initiated by theoretical advances. For much of this theoretical advance the large-scale shell model has been the method of choice.

The collaboration Madrid-Strasbourg initiated by E. Caurier, A. Zuker and A.  Poves thirty years ago has leaded the field worldwide.

Among their contributions one should mention the characterization of the effective nuclear interaction which has allowed the description of a great number of observables in large regions of the chart of nuclei; the macroscopic description of the deformed and super-deformed nuclei; the identification of the mechanism that give rise to the vanishing of certain magic numbers in neutron rich nuclei and the subsequent appearance of islands of deformation, etc.  One should also mention the works done by A. Poves on nuclear weak interaction process, including the quenching of the Gamow-Teller strength and the calculation of the matrix elements relevant for neutrino or neutrinoless double beta decay.

The Spanish scientists José Benlliure, Gabriel Martínez and Berta Rubio, have received this membership award previously.