We propose a thick-restart block Lanczos method, which is an extension of the thick-restart Lanczos method with the block algorithm, as an eigensolver of the large-scale shell-model calculations. This method has two advantages over the conventional Lanczos method: the precise computations of the near-degenerate eigenvalues, and the efficient computations for obtaining a large number of eigenvalues. These features are quite advantageous to compute highly excited states where the eigenvalue density is rather high. A shell-model code, named KSHELL, equipped with this method was developed for massively parallel computations, and it enables us to reveal nuclear statistical properties which are intensively investigated by recent experimental facilities. We describe the algorithm and performance of the KSHELL code and demonstrate that the present method outperforms the conventional Lanczos method.

14 pages, 13 figures