This book presents numerical methods for solving a wide range of problems associated with the structure of atoms and simplest molecules, and their interaction with electromagnetic radiation, electrons, and other particles. It introduces the ATOM-M software package, presenting a unified software suite, written in Fortran, for carrying out precise atomic and molecular numeric calculations. The book shows how to apply these numerical methods to obtain many different characteristics of atoms, molecules, and the various processes within which they interact. In an entirely self-sufficient approach, it teaches the reader how to use the codes provided to build atomic and molecular systems from the ground up and obtain the resulting one-electron wave functions. The computational programs presented and made available in this book allow calculations in the one-electron Hartree-Fock approximation and take into account many-electron correlations within the framework of the random-phase approximation with exchange or many-body perturbation theory. Ideal for scholars interested in numerical computation of atomic and molecular processes, the material presented in this book is useful to both experts and novices, theorists, and experimentalists.

Pulsars, generally accepted to be rotating neutron stars, are dense, neutron-packed remnants of massive stars that blew apart in supernova explosions. They are typically about 10 kilometers across and spin rapidly, often making several hundred rotations per second. Depending on star mass, gravity compresses the matter in the cores of pulsars up to more than ten times the density of ordinary atomic nuclei, thus providing a high-pressure environment in which numerous particle processes, from hyperon population to quark deconfinement to the formation of Boson condensates, may compete with each other. There are theoretical suggestions of even more "exotic" processes inside pulsars, such as the formation of absolutely stable strange quark matter, a configuration of matter even more stable than the most stable atomic nucleus, T56Fe. In the latter event, pulsars would be largely composed of pure quark matter, eventually enveloped in nuclear crust matter. These features combined with the tremendous recent progress in observational radio and x-ray astronomy make pulsars nearly ideal probes for a wide range of physical studies, complementing the quest of the behavior of superdense matter in terrestrial collider experiments. Written by an eminent author, Pulsars as Astrophysical Laboratories for Nuclear and Particle Physics gives a reliable account of the present status of such research, which naturally is to be performed at the interface between nuclear physics, particle physics, and Einstein's theory of relativity.

This book introduces the research process and principles of the controlled super-coupling nuclear fusion experiment at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor in Hefei, China. It uses straightforward language to explain how nuclear fusion can provide safe, environmentally friendly, clean, and inexhaustible energy in future. EAST is the world's first fully superconducting, non-circular cross-section tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device, independently developed by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This book helps demonstrate China's cutting-edge scientific and technological advances to the rest of the world, helps spread the scientific spirit to people around the globe, and promotes prosperity and development. The book is intended for all non-experts who would like to learn more about nuclear energy and related technologies.

An uncommonly clear and cogent investigation and correlation of key aspects of theoretical nuclear physics by leading experts: the nucleus, nuclear forces, nuclear spectroscopy, two-, three- and four-body problems, nuclear reactions, beta-decay and nuclear shell structure. Directed to the experimental physicist working in nuclear physics or graduate students who know the essential concepts and problems. 112 illustrations.

This book provides an itinerary to quantum mechanics taking into account the basic mathematics to formulate it. Specifically, it features the main experiments and postulates of quantum mechanics pointing out their mathematical prominent aspects showing how physical concepts and mathematical tools are deeply intertwined. The material covers topics such as analytic mechanics in Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian formulations, theory of light as formulated in special relativity, and then why quantum mechanics is necessary to explain experiments like the double-split, atomic spectra, and photoelectric effect. The Schroedinger equation and its solutions are developed in detail. It is pointed out that, starting from the concept of the harmonic oscillator, it is possible to develop advanced quantum mechanics. Furthermore, the mathematics behind the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is constructed towards advanced quantum mechanical principles. Relativistic quantum mechanics is finally considered.The book is devoted to undergraduate students from University courses of Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry, and Engineering. It consists of 50 self-contained lectures, and any statement and theorem are demonstrated in detail. It is the companion book of "A Mathematical Journey to Relativity", by the same Authors, published by Springer in 2020.

This thesis explores two distinct applications of laser spectroscopy: the study of nuclear ground state properties, and element selective radioactive ion beam production. It also presents the methods and results of an investigation into isotope shifts in the mercury isotopic chain. These Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source (RILIS) developments are detailed, together with an RILIS ionization scheme that allowed laser ionized ion beams of chromium, germanium, radium and tellurium to be generated at the Isotope Mass Separator On-Line (ISOLDE) facility. A combination of laser spectroscopy with decay spectroscopy and mass spectrometry unambiguously demonstrated a cessation of the extreme shape staggering first observed in the 1970s and revealed the characteristic kink at the crossing of the N=126 shell closure. A series of RILIS developments were required to facilitate this experiment, including mercury "ionization scheme" development and the coupling of the RILIS with an arc discharge ion source. Laser spectroscopy has since become a powerful tool for nuclear physics and the Resonance Ionization Laser Ion Source (RILIS), of the ISOLDE facility at CERN, is a prime example. Highlighting important advances in this field, the thesis offers a unique and revealing resource.

This open access book covers recent advances in experiments using the ultra-cold, very weakly perturbing superfluid environment provided by helium nanodroplets for high resolution spectroscopic, structural and dynamic studies of molecules and synthetic clusters. The recent infra-red, UV-Vis studies of radicals, molecules, clusters, ions and biomolecules, as well as laser dynamical and laser orientational studies, are reviewed. The Coulomb explosion studies of the uniquely quantum structures of small helium clusters, X-ray imaging of large droplets and electron diffraction of embedded molecules are also described. Particular emphasis is given to the synthesis and detection of new species by mass spectrometry and deposition electron microscopy.

When a projectile and a target nucleus interact, creating a composite nucleus, the energy initially concentrated on a few nucleons spreads through the composite nucleus, which evolves towards a state of statistical equilibrium. During this equilibration process, nucleons, or aggregates of nucleons, having considerable energy, may be ejected. This book gives a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the experimental and theoretical research that has been devoted, during the past 25 years, to the study of these pre-equilibrium reactions. After a historical introduction, the theories of the reactions are described in detail, beginning with the phenomenological exciton and master equation theories and going on to the fully quantum-mechanical theories of Feshbach, Kerman and Koonin, Tamura and Udagawa, and Weidenmuller and colleagues. The multistep compound and multistep direct theories are considered separately, and all the theories are extensively compared with experimental data. A detailed account of compound nucleus reactions is also included, together with a review of the theories of the nuclear-level densities that are needed to evaluate pre-equilibrium cross-sections. The main emphasis of the book is on nucleon-induced reactions, but those due to composite particles and heavy ions are also considered.

This carefully researched book presents facts and arguments showing, beyond a doubt, that nuclear fusion power will not be technically feasible in time to satisfy the world's urgent need for climate-neutral energy. The author describes the 70-year history of nuclear fusion; the vain attempts to construct an energy-generating nuclear fusion power reactor, and shows that even in the most optimistic scenario nuclear fusion, in spite of the claims of its proponents, will not be able to make a sizable contribution to the energy mix in this century, whatever the outcome of ITER. This implies that fusion power will not be a factor in combating climate change, and that the race to save the climate with carbon-free energy will have been won or lost long before the first nuclear fusion power station comes on line. Aimed at the general public as well as those whose decisions directly affect energy policy, this book will be a valuable resource for informing future debates.

This book addresses the nature of the chemical bond in inorganic and coordination compounds. In particular, it explains how general symmetry rules can describe chemical bond of simple inorganic molecules. Since the complexity of studying even simple molecules requires approximate methods, this book introduces a quantum mechanical treatment taking into account the geometric peculiarities of the chemical compound. In the case of inorganic molecules, a convenient approximation comes from symmetry, which constrains both the electronic energies and the chemical bonds. The book also gives special emphasis on symmetry rules and compares the use of symmetry operators with that of Hamiltonian operators. Where possible, the reactivity of molecules is also rationalized in terms of these symmetry properties. As practical examples, electronic spectroscopy and magnetism give experimental confirmation of the predicted electronic energy levels. Adapted from university lecture course notes, this book is the ideal companion for any inorganic chemistry course dealing with group theory.

This textbook is a unique and ambitious primer of nuclear physics, which introduces recent theoretical and experimental progresses starting from basics in fundamental quantum mechanics. The highlight is to offer an overview of nuclear structure phenomena relevant to recent key findings such as unstable halo nuclei, superheavy elements, neutron stars, nucleosynthesis, the standard model, lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD), and chiral effective theory. An additional attraction is that general properties of nuclei are comprehensively explained from both the theoretical and experimental viewpoints. The book begins with the conceptual and mathematical basics of quantum mechanics, and goes into the main point of nuclear physics - nuclear structure, radioactive ion beam physics, and nuclear reactions. The last chapters devote interdisciplinary topics in association with astrophysics and particle physics. A number of illustrations and exercises with complete solutions are given. Each chapter is comprehensively written starting from fundamentals to gradually reach modern aspects of nuclear physics with the objective to provide an effective description of the cutting edge in the field.

The interacting boson model was introduced in 1974 as an attempt to describe collective properties of nuclei in a unified way. Since 1974, the model has been the subject of many investigations and it has been extended to cover most aspects of nuclear structure. This book gives an account of the properties of the interacting boson model. In particular, this book presents the mathematical techniques used to analyze the structure of the model. It also collects in a single, easily accessible reference all the formulas that have been developed throughout the years to account for collective properties of nuclei. Suitable for both theorists and experimentalists.

This book is based on Valery Zagrebaev's original papers and lecture materials on nuclear physics with heavy ions, which he prepared and extended through many years for the students of nuclear physics specialties. Th book outlines the main experimental facts on nuclear reactions involving heavy ions at low energies. It focuses on discussions of nuclear physics processes that are a subject of active, modern research and it gives illustrative explanations of these phenomena in the framework of up-to-date theoretical concepts. This textbook is intended for students in physics who have completed a standard course of quantum mechanics and have basic ideas of nuclear physics processes. It is designed as a kind of lifeboat that, at the end of the course, will allow students to navigate the modern scientific literature and to understand the goals and objectives of current, on-going research.

This book is a primer on the interplay between plasma and materials in a fusion reactor, so-called plasma-materials interactions (PMIs), highlighting materials and their influence on plasma through PMI. It aims to demonstrate that a plasma-facing surface (PFS) responds actively to fusion plasma and that the clarifying nature of PFS is indispensable to understanding the influence of PFS on plasma. It describes the modern insight into PMI, namely, relevant feedback to plasma performance from plasma-facing material (PFM) on changes in a material surface by plasma power load by radiation and particles, contrary to a conventional view that unilateral influence from plasma on PFM is dominant in PMI. There are many books and reviews on PMI in the context of plasma physics, that is, how plasma or plasma confinement works in PMI. By contrast, this book features a materials aspect in PMI focusing on changes caused by heat and particle load from plasma: how PFMs are changed by plasma exposure and then, accordingly, how the changed PFM interacts with plasma.

There are a variety of models which can be used to study nuclear structure and dynamics. This book gives a comprehensive overview of these various models, concentrating in particular on a description of deformed and rotating nuclei. Following a treatment of the semi-empirical mass formula and nuclear stability, the liquid-drop and simple shell models are introduced and described. The spherical nuclear one-particle potential is introduced and developed to cover the case of deformed nuclei. The latter chapters of the book are devoted to discussions of barrier penetration, fast nuclear rotation, nucleon-nucleon interactions and the pairing interaction. Many problems and solutions are included, which help to illustrate key concepts. The book will be invaluable to graduate students of nuclear physics, and to anyone engaged in research in this field.

This book is a research monograph summarizing recent advances related to the molecular structure of water and ice, and it is based on the latest spectroscopic data available. A special focus is given to radio- and microwave frequency regions. Within the five interconnected chapters, the author reviews the electromagnetic waves interaction with water, ice, and moist substances, discussing the microscopic mechanisms behind the dielectric responses. Well-established classic views concerning the structure of water and ice are considered along with new approaches related to atomic and molecular dynamics. Particular attention is given to nanofluidics, atmospheric science, and electrochemistry. The mathematical apparatus, based on diverse approaches employed in condensed matter physics, is widely used and allows the reader to quantitatively describe the electrodynamic response of water and ice in both bulk and confined states. This book is intended for a wide audience covering physicists, electrochemists, geophysicists, engineers, biophysicists, and general scientists who work on the electromagnetic radiation interaction with water and moist substances.

This book deals with the methods of X-ray production at a level which is accessible to advanced undergraduates and researchers who use X-rays. It also discusses the fundamentals of these physical properties from an experimental viewpoint which is not covered in more specialised texts. The book begins with a survey of work carried out before 1945. Continuous and characteristic spectra are discussed followed by a description of techniques used in their study. Further studies of production, absorption and scattering in atomic and nuclear processes are described, including a completely new chapter on X-ray production by protons, alpha-particles and ions. The concluding chapter surveys some more advanced fields of study. It will be very valuable to all research and industrial physicists working with X-rays who need to know about their fundamental properties in more detail. In this second edition SI units are used throughout and the material reflects the changes in the use of X-rays and the developments in the field.

The second edition of this successful text has been updated and expanded to incorporate more clarified coverage of the material. Beginning with discussions of the general properties of nuclei and nuclear forces, the book describes the shell and collective models of the nucleus and uses them where appropriate to explain the various decays of nuclei by the emission of alpha-, beta-, and gamma-radiation. The author uses the optical model and the concept of the compound nucleus to explain nuclear reactions and concludes with a discussion of nuclear fission and fusion reactions, adding four new appendices to further explore more advanced topics. On the first edition: "The difficulties of treating these subjects at this level are overcome very successfully by judicious use of simplified calculations, illuminated by penetrating comments revealing a deep understanding of the subject. Indeed there are few professional physicists who would not find it a rewarding experience to read this book."--Nature

This book provides a systematic introduction to the physics behind measurements on plasmas. It develops from first principles the concepts needed to plan, execute, and interpret plasma diagnostics. The book is therefore accessible to graduate students and professionals with little specific plasma physics background, but is also a valuable reference for seasoned plasma physicists. Most of the examples are taken from laboratory plasma research, but the focus on principles makes the treatment useful to all experimental and theoretical plasma physicists, including those interested in space and astrophysical applications. This second edition is thoroughly revised and updated, with new sections and chapters covering recent developments in the field. Specific areas of added coverage include neutral-beam-based diagnostics, flow measurement with mach probes, equilibrium of strongly shaped plasmas and fusion product diagnostics.

This book provides an up-to-date account of the precise experiments used to explore the nature of universal gravitation that can be performed in a terrestrial laboratory. The experiments required are at the limits of sensitivity of mechanical measurements. The problems of experiment design are discussed, and critical accounts given of the principal experiments testing the inverse square law and the principle of equivalence, and measuring the constant of gravitation. An analysis of the effects of noise and other disturbances is also provided, further highlighting the care that is needed in experimental design and performance. The motivation for undertaking such experiments is also discussed. The book will be of value to graduate students, researchers and teachers who are engaged in either theoretical or experimental studies of gravitation, and who wish to understand the nature and problems of laboratory experiments in this field.

This textbook concerns thermal properties of bulk matter and is aimed at advanced undergraduate or first-year graduate students in a range of programs in science or engineering. It provides an intermediate level presentation of statistical thermodynamics for students in the physical sciences (chemistry, nanosciences, physics) or related areas of applied science/engineering (chemical engineering, materials science, nanotechnology engineering), as they are areas in which statistical mechanical concepts play important roles. The book enables students to utilize microscopic concepts to achieve a better understanding of macroscopic phenomena and to be able to apply these concepts to the types of sub-macroscopic systems encountered in areas of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

This book presents proton-3He elastic scattering experiments conducted at intermediate energies, with the aim of identifying three-nucleon force (3NF) effects in a four-nucleon scattering system. The 3NF plays an essential part in understanding various nuclear phenomena, and few-nucleon scatterings further offers a good opportunity to study the dynamical aspects of 3NFs. In particular, proton-3He scattering is one of the most promising approaches to an iso-spin dependence of 3NFs. The book in-depth explains the achieved development of polarized 3He target system for the proton-3He scattering experiments, and describes successful precise evaluation of the target polarization. The experiments yielded the first precise data for this system and offer a valuable resource for the study of 3NFs.

This primer begins with a brief introduction to the main ideas underlying Effective Field Theory (EFT) and describes how nuclear forces are obtained from first principles by introducing a Euclidean space-time lattice for chiral EFT. It subsequently develops the related technical aspects by addressing the two-nucleon problem on the lattice and clarifying how it fixes the numerical values of the low-energy constants of chiral EFT. In turn, the spherical wall method is introduced and used to show how improved lattice actions render higher-order corrections perturbative. The book also presents Monte Carlo algorithms used in actual calculations. In the last part of the book, the Euclidean time projection method is introduced and used to compute the ground-state properties of nuclei up to the mid-mass region. In this context, the construction of appropriate trial wave functions for the Euclidean time projection is discussed, as well as methods for determining the energies of the low-lying excitations and their spatial structure. In addition, the so-called adiabatic Hamiltonian, which allows nuclear reactions to be precisely calculated, is introduced using the example of alpha-alpha scattering. In closing, the book demonstrates how Nuclear Lattice EFT can be extended to studies of unphysical values of the fundamental parameters, using the triple-alpha process as a concrete example with implications for the anthropic view of the Universe. Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory offers a concise, self-contained, and introductory text suitable for self-study use by graduate students and newcomers to the field of modern computational techniques for atomic nuclei and nuclear reactions.

The development of nuclear weapons during the Manhattan Project is one of the most significant scientific events of the twentieth century. This revised and updated 4th edition explores the challenges that faced the scientists and engineers of the Manhattan Project. It gives a clear introduction to fission weapons at the level of an upper-year undergraduate physics student by examining the details of nuclear reactions, their energy release, analytic and numerical models of the fission process, how critical masses can be estimated, how fissile materials are produced, and what factors complicate bomb design. An extensive list of references and a number of exercises for self-study are included. Revisions to this fourth edition include many upgrades and new sections. Improvements are made to, among other things, the analysis of the physics of the fission barrier, the time-dependent simulation of the explosion of a nuclear weapon, and the discussion of tamped bomb cores. New sections cover, for example, composite bomb cores, approximate methods for various of the calculations presented, and the physics of the polonium-beryllium "neutron initiators" used to trigger the bombs. The author delivers in this book an unparalleled, clear and comprehensive treatment of the physics behind the Manhattan project.

This volume comprises select peer-reviewed papers from the Indo-French Workshop on Multifragmentation, Collective Flow, and Sub-Threshold Particle Production in Heavy-Ion Reactions held at the Department of Physics, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India in February, 2019. The contents highlight latest research trends in intermediate energy nuclear physics and emphasize on the various reaction mechanisms which take place in heavy-ion collisions. The chapters contribute to the understanding of interactions that govern the dynamics at sub-nucleonic level. The book includes contributions from global experts hailing from major research facilities of nuclear physics, and provides a good balance between experimental and theoretical model based studies. Given the range of topics covered, this book can be a useful reference for students and researchers interested in the field of heavy-ion reactions.