Jiangming Yao (Return Home)

Prof. Dr. Jiangming Yao’s main research interests include nuclear structure, neutrinoless double beta decay, hypernuclear structure and neutron stars, density functional theory, ab initio methods, and the similarity renormalization group. He has published over 100 SCI papers in well-known nuclear physics journals such as Physical Review Letters, Physics Letters B, and Physical Review C. He is currently the leader of the nuclear theory group in the division of theoretical physics, at the School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-sen University, China.

AD Rankings for Scientists 

Contact Address:

Room 2310, Tianqin Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Tangjiawan, Xiangzhou District, Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, China, Post Code: 519082 

中国广东省珠海市香洲区唐家湾中山大学天琴中心2310室 邮编：519082

Representative Achievements:

• Yao, together with his collaborators, has developed a multi-reference covariant density functional theory (MR-CDFT) for studying collective excitations in atomic nuclei with triaxial and octupole deformations. By introducing quantum number projection and generating coordinate methods, the theory solves the problem of quantum number non-conservation arising from symmetry breaking in density functional theory. It has become one of the most advanced microscopic methods for describing collective excitations in atomic nuclei. The development of this theoretical model has spurred research into collective coupling-related issues such as the triaxial deformation effect in shape coexisting nuclei, the parity splitting of positive and negative energy levels in octupole deformed atomic nuclei, clustering phenomena in light nuclei, octupole non-harmonic vibrations in fusion reactions, and hypernuclear spectroscopy.
  

• Yao, together with his collaborators,  has also developed the so-called in-medium generating coordinate method (IM-GCM). In the past decades, the in-medium similarity renormalization group method (IMSRG) has achieved great success in nuclear structure research, but it faces bottlenecks when dealing with deformed nuclei. Yao has combined quantum number projection and the generating coordinate method with the IMSRG, starting from chiral nuclear forces, and established the IM-GCM (IM-GCM/MR-IMSRG+GCM) for studying medium-heavy open-shell nuclei. This theoretical method extends ab initio calculations of deformed atomic nuclei.

• Yao, together with his collaborators,  has made contribution to the determination of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta decay. He systematically calculated the structural properties and decay matrix elements of candidate nuclei from light to heavy in the relativistic theoretical framework, and discussed in detail the effects of relativistic effects, short-range coupling, deformation, symmetry restoration, and configuration mixing on the nuclear matrix elements. Using a newly developed ab initio method, he achieved a first-principles calculation of the decay matrix element of candidate nucleus 48Ca for neutrinoless double beta decay. This work was reported by international scientific media (ScienceDaily, Phys.org, etc.) under the title "Researchers develop a novel approach to modeling yet-unconfirmed rare nuclear process".

Education Background:

• 2000.09-2004.06, Bachelor's degree, Nankai University
• 2004.09-2009.06, Ph.D., Peking University
• 2006.09-2008.09, visiting scholar, Technical University of Munich, Germany

Professional Experience

· 2009.07-2017.03, Southwest University, Distinguished Professor/Researcher

· 2011.06-2012.12,Universite de Brussels (ULB), Belgium, Postdoctoral Researcher

· 2013.07-2015.08, Tohoku University, Japan, Assistant Professor

· 2015.09-2018.01, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, PostdoctoralResearch Associate

· 2018.02-2021.01, Michigan State University, USA, Postdoctoral Rsearch Associate

· 2021.02-Present, School of Physics and Astronomy, Sun Yat-sen University, Professor

Representative works:

• Ab initio calculation of the contact operator contribution in the standard mechanism for neutrinoless double beta decay ,
  R. Wirth*, J. M. Yao*, H. Hergert*, Phys. Rev. Lett. 127, 242502 (2021) [DOI] 
• Advances in modeling nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double beta decay,
  J. M. Yao, Science Bulletin, Volume 66, 3-5 (2021). [DOI] 
• Ab Initio Treatment of Collective Correlations and the Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay of 48Ca,
  J. M. Yao, B. Bally, J. Engel, R. Wirth, T. R. Rodríguez, and H. Hergert, Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 232501 (2020) [DOI]. 
• Beyond relativistic mean-field approach for nuclear octupole excitations,
  J. M. Yao, E. F. Zhou, and Z. P. Li, Phys. Rev. C 92, 041304(R) (2015). [DOI]. 
• Systematic study of nuclear matrix elements in neutrinoless double-beta decay with a beyond-mean-field covariant density functional theory,
  J. M. Yao, L. S. Song, K. Hagino, P. Ring, and J. Meng, Phys. Rev. C 91, 024316 (2015). [DOI]. 
• Microscopic benchmark study of triaxiality in low-lying states of 76Kr,
  J. M. Yao, K. Hagino, Z. P. Li, J. Meng, and P. Ring, Phys. Rev. C 89, 054306 (2014). [DOI]. 
• Configuration mixing of angular-momentum-projected triaxial relativistic mean-field wave functions,
  J. M. Yao, J. Meng, P. Ring, and D. Vretenar, Phys. Rev. C 81, 044311 (2010) [DOI]. 

Review: 

• Beyond-mean-field approaches for nuclear neutrinoless double beta decay in the standard mechanism,
  J. M. Yao, J. Meng, Y. F. Niu, P. Ring, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 126, 103965(2022) [DOI]
  

Books:

- International Review of Nuclear Physics: Volume 10, Relativistic Density Functional for Nuclear Structure [DOI], edited by J. Meng

• Chapter 7: Structure of hypernuclei in relativistic approaches,
  K. Hagino, J. M. Yao, arXiv:1410.7531 [nucl-th] 
• Chapter 12: Beyond the Relativistic Mean-Field Approximation — Collective Correlation [DOI]
  Z. P. Li, T. Nikšić, D. Vretenar and J. M. Yao,
  

- Handbook of Nuclear Physics, edited by Isao Tanihata, Hiroshi Toki, Toshitaka Kajino

• Symmetry Restoration Methods (DOI),
  

Complete publication list： Inspirehep, Publons,

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9505-1852

Conference, workshops, and Seminars:

• Mar. 18, 2023, 'Ab initio calculations of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta decay' (invited talk), The NνDEx Collaboration meeting,Institute of Modern Physics, CAS, Lanzhou, China 
• Feb. 28, 2023, 'Nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double beta decay: status and perspective', Seminar (details), Institute of High Energy Physics, CAS, Beijing, China 
• Nov. 15, 2022, ' Advances in modeling neutrinoless double beta decay with nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory' (invited talk), The 7-th Chiral Effective Field Theory (details), Nanjing, China 
• May 26, 2022, 'Advances in modeling nuclear matrix elements of neutrinoless double beta decay' (invited talk), The 165th HENPIC seminar (details), online. 
• Dec. 18, 2021, ‘Advances in modeling medium-mass hypernuclei (invited talk) [pdf]，the 4th International Workshop on Strangeness Nuclear Physics (SNP), online 
• June 2, 2021, Ab initio calculations of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta decay: from nuclear decay to neutrino mass[pdf]，Nankai University，Tianjin, China 
• May 21, 2021, Ab initio calculations of nuclear matrix elements for neutrinoless double beta decay [pdf]， Workshop on neutrinoless double beta decay, Sun Yat-sen Univ., Zhuhai, China 
• April 27, 2021,  Nuclear ab initio calculations: from atomic nuclei to neutron stars [pdf]，Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang, China 
• April 3, 2021, Advances in modeling nuclear collective correlations and neutrinoless double beta decay (invited talk),  the 11th Workshop on Covariant Density Functional Theory in Nuclear Physics，Chongqing, China