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Kaptur: National Science Foundation Awards UToledo Researcher $210,000

September 8, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC– Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09) joined the National Science Foundation (NSF) to announce the award of $210,000 to The University of Toledo for a three-year project to build on the recent success of quantum defect theories for atom-atom and ion-atom interactions. The annual award of $70,000 for the project titled "Quantum Theories of Fundamental Atomic and Molecular Interactions” begins this month and extends through 2019, with an annual review.

The research project intends to develop better models for many-atom systems, and to extend them to other fundamental atomic interactions such as the electron-atom interaction.

“Admittedly I’m not one to fully understand the meaning of the terms ‘quantum defect theories’ or ‘anisotropic interactions,’” said Congresswoman Kaptur. “But I do understand that The University of Toledo has an excellent faculty, many of whom are engaged in fascinating and groundbreaking research. Given the competition for funds from the National Science Foundation, this is another indication that The University of Toledo is a highly-respected institution, with an exciting future.”

Bo Gao, UT physics professor and project leader, is eager to use this research funding to make new advances in understanding how atoms and molecules interact.

“We need much more investments in both the research and the education of fundamental atomic and molecular physics to bring about future revolutions in science, including those in biology and medicine,” Gao said.

According to the NSF grant, the researcher also will “take initial steps towards the developments of quantum defect theories for anisotropic interactions, such as the atom-molecule interaction, with the ultimate goal of achieving a unified and an efficient framework for all aspects of atomic and molecular structures and interactions.”
The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports research, innovation, and discovery that provides the foundation for economic growth in this country. By advancing the frontiers of science and engineering, our nation can develop the knowledge and cutting edge technologies needed to address the challenges we face today and will face in the future.

According to the NSF:

  • “This project is focused on improved theoretical descriptions of the interactions between atoms and/or molecules over a broad range of energy. These elementary interactions are the essential ingredients for the study of quantum many-body systems throughout physics and chemistry, and, increasingly, in biology and the life-sciences as well. In most applications of quantum mechanics to complex many-body systems, the pairwise interactions between atoms and/or molecules are approximated with simple analytical forms dictated by practicality and expedience, but which neglect essential physics. Better representations of these interactions through accurate, first-principle calculations, by contrast, are simply too complicated to incorporate into many-body studies. This project is part of an effort to resolve this conundrum and to develop quantum theories of fundamental atomic interactions that are both sufficiently simple and systematic to be incorporated into quantum many-body theories, and simultaneously accurate enough to capture all the essential physics. The degree to which this can be accomplished may well determine the relevance of theoretical models and simulations of many-body systems to real-world experimental observations.
  • The project builds on the recent success of quantum defect theories for atom-atom and ion-atom interactions. It intends both to apply them to develop better models for many-atom systems, and to extend them to other fundamental atomic interactions such as the electron-atom interaction. Quantum defect theories are general theories of structures and interactions that take advantage of the fact that over most energy ranges of interest, the complexities in atomic interactions, such as their energy and partial wave dependences, are due almost entirely to the long-range interaction, which makes them amenable to systematic and often analytic treatment. The project also intends to take initial steps towards the developments of quantum defect theories for anisotropic interactions, such as the atom-molecule interaction, with the ultimate goal of achieving a unified and an efficient framework for all aspects of atomic and molecular structures and interactions.”

Congresswoman Kaptur is a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, which has funding responsibilities and oversight over the National Science Foundation.


Background:

The National Science Foundation announcement: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1607256

For background on the NSF’s Mathematical and Physics Division: https://www.nsf.gov/div/index.jsp?div=phy

To contact the National Science Foundation on this award contact: (703) 292-8070.

For background on UT Physics Professor Bo Gao: https://bgaowww.physics.utoledo.edu/

For background on The University of Toledo:

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