Bio
Matthias Heinz joined ORNL as Distinguished Staff Fellow in 2024. He researches theoretical calculations of the structure of atomic nuclei, leveraging high-performance computing in first-principles computations.
Matthias obtained his Ph.D. (2024) from the TU Darmstadt in Germany as a Doctoral Fellow of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. His research developed many-body methods used in first-principles nuclear structure calculations to improve their precision and extend their range to the heaviest stable isotopes. This improved precision and reach requires large-scale calculations on supercomputers like Frontier at the OLCF.
At ORNL, Matthias is developing nuclear structure calculations to make predictions for ongoing and planned new physics searches including neutrinoless double-beta decay, coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, and permanent electric dipoles in radioactive molecules. His work is developing ORNL’s leadership computing capacities in ab initio calculations to tackle these heavy, deformed nuclei to refine our understanding of how complex phenomena arise from basic nuclear forces. An improved understanding of heavy nuclei will enable us to address open questions on the synthesis of heavy elements in astrophysical environments.