William Detmold

About

William Detmold is a Professor of Physics at MIT and a Graduate Program Faculty Coordinator. His research focuses on strong interaction dynamics in theoretical particle and nuclear physics. He employs analytic methods and supercomputers to solve complex equations of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) that describe the strong interaction, aiming to understand the emergence of hadrons and nuclei from the Standard Model of particle physics. His work seeks to determine the properties and interactions of these systems from first principles, confront experimental data, and make predictions for regimes such as the interior of neutron stars where experiments are not feasible. Professor Detmold obtained his PhD from the University of Adelaide, Australia, and joined the MIT physics faculty in 2012. Prior to MIT, he held appointments at the College of William and Mary and the University of Washington. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society. His contributions include pioneering calculations of few-body hadronic systems using lattice quantum chromodynamics, including the spectrum of light nuclei and hypernuclei, Bose-condensed multimeson systems, and inelastic nuclear reactions.

Research topics

• Physics
• Particle physics
• Nuclear physics
• Computer Science
• Systems engineering
• Optics
• Engineering
• Engineering physics
• Astronomy

Selected publications

• Science Requirements and Detector Concepts for the Electron-Ion Collider: EIC Yellow Report

  HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe) · 2021 · 160 citations

  902 pages, 412 authors, 151 institutions

• Nuclear matrix elements from lattice QCD for electroweak and beyond-Standard-Model processes

  Physics Reports · 2020 · 66 citations

  DOI

• Lattice quantum chromodynamics at large isospin density

  Physical review. D/Physical review. D. · 2023-12-18 · 51 citations

  articleOpen access

  We present an algorithm to compute correlation functions for systems with the quantum numbers of many identical mesons from lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD). The algorithm is numerically stable and allows for the computation of $n$-pion correlation functions for $n\ensuremath{\in}{1,\dots{},N}$ using a single $N\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}N$ matrix decomposition, improving on previous algorithms. We apply the algorithm to calculations of correlation functions with up to 6144 charged pi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Variational study of two-nucleon systems with lattice QCD

  Physical review. D/Physical review. D. · 2023-05-17 · 44 citations

  articleOpen access

  The low-energy spectrum and scattering of two-nucleon systems are studied with lattice quantum chromodynamics using a variational approach. A wide range of interpolating operators are used: dibaryon operators built from products of plane-wave nucleons, hexaquark operators built from six localized quarks, and quasilocal operators inspired by two-nucleon bound-state wave functions in low-energy effective theories. Sparsening techniques are used to compute the timeslice-to-all quark propagators req…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• QCD Constraints on Isospin-Dense Matter and the Nuclear Equation of State

  Physical Review Letters · 2025-01-06 · 32 citations

  articleOpen access

  Understanding the behavior of dense hadronic matter is a central goal in nuclear physics as it governs the nature and dynamics of astrophysical objects such as supernovae and neutron stars. Because of the nonperturbative nature of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), little is known rigorously about hadronic matter in these extreme conditions. Here, lattice QCD calculations are used to compute thermodynamic quantities and the equation of state of QCD over a wide range of isospin chemical potentials wit…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Kostas Orginos

  William & Mary

  353 shared

• Phiala E. Shanahan

  The NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions

  237 shared

• Brian C. Tiburzi

  City College of New York

  219 shared

• Martin J. Savage

  205 shared

• Silas R. Beane

  184 shared

• Michael L. Wagman

  Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

  180 shared

• Wally Melnitchouk

  Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

  163 shared

• Emmanuel Chang

  The NSF AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions

  159 shared

Awards & honors

• Fellow, American Physical Society (2016)
• Early Career Research Program Award, Department of Energy (2…
• Outstanding Junior Investigator Award, Department of Energy…

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