New approach to large-scale nuclear structure calculations

A new approach to large-scale nuclear structure calculations, based on the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG), is described. The method is tested in the context of a problem involving many identical nucleons constrained to move in a single large-j shell and interacting via a pairing plus quadrupole interaction. In cases in which exact diagonalization of the Hamiltonian is possible, the method is able to reproduce the exact results for the ground-state energy and the energies of low-lying excited states with extreme precision. Results are also presented for a model problem in which exact solution is not feasible.