Speaker: Thomas Buervenich (T-16, LANL)

Status and Perspectives of relativistic nuclear structure models

We discuss present strengths and short-comings of current relativistic nuclear structure models. Relativistic mean-field models, which nowadays are being reinterpreted in the spirit of effective field theory and density functional theory, offer the unique possibility to describe nuclei ranging from A >16 to superheavy systems at the cost of introducing phenomenological interaction terms and coupling constants. Thus, the models need to be carefully adjusted to observables, and, in order to keep the number of unknown coupling constants as small as possible, the relevant physics needs to be identified. Based on present experience we discuss perspectives and directions for future developments.