Bridging the gap: fermions in nuclear and atomic physics

I will discuss two general areas: a) the physics of heavy nuclei and the connection with our understanding of weak coupling in quantum many-body theory, and b) the physics of ultracold atomic gases. More specifically, I will address two issues: i) the density dependence of Skyrme/Gogny Functionals used to describe large nuclei, and ii) the energy of infinite matter at the strongly interacting (and experimentally accessible) regime known as "unitarity". A connecting thread between the two problems (apart from the fermionic nature of the particles) is the methoodology: in both cases we have used Quantum Monte Carlo to either constrain or compare with Density Functional Theory calculations.