Abstract: Neutron stars, only about 12 km in radius but up to twice as heavy as our Sun, consist of the densest observable matter in the Universe. These extreme compact objects are stabilized by the same strong interactions at work in atomic nuclei. Recently, great advances have been made in understanding strong interactions in nuclei and neutron stars. This progress has been enabled by combining effective field theories of the strong interaction and powerful many-body approaches with multidisciplinary insights from experiment and observations. This colloquium will discuss these advances and the open challenges in exploring strong interactions in the Universe.

About the speaker: Achim Schwenk’s fascination for strong interaction physics began during his Fulbright Fellowship in Stony Brook, USA, where he received his Ph.D. in 2002 with Prof. Gerald E. Brown. Until 2009, he led the Theory Department at TRIUMF, Canada's National Laboratory for Particle and Nuclear Physics, and was then appointed Full Professor at TU Darmstadt, where he built up the Theory Center of the Institute for Nuclear Physics. He is the Spokesperson of the DFG Collaborative Research Center SFB 1245 „Nuclei: From Fundamental Interactions to Structure and Stars”, Max Planck Fellow at the MPI for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, and Affiliate Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle. After an ERC Starting Grant, he was awarded an ERC Advanced Grant “Exploring the Universe through Strong Interactions”. Achim Schwenk has published over 200 scientific publications. His work was recognized by several national and interactional prizes, most recently with the LOEWE Top Professorship.