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Books > Science & Mathematics > Physics > Nuclear structure physics
Vortices comprising swirling motion of matter are observable in
classical systems at all scales ranging from atomic size to the
scale of galaxies. In quantum mechanical systems, such vortices are
robust entities whose behaviours are governed by the strict rules
of topology. The physics of quantum vortices is pivotal to basic
science of quantum turbulence and high temperature superconductors,
and underpins emerging quantum technologies including topological
quantum computation. This handbook is aimed at providing a
dictionary style portal to the fascinating quantum world of
vortices.
Electrostatic Accelerators have been at the forefront of modern
technology since the development by Sir John Cockroft and Ernest
Walton in 1932 of the first accelerator, which was the first to
achieve nuclear transmutation and earned them the Nobel Prize in
Physics in 1951. The applications of Cockroft and Walton's
development have been far reaching, even into our kitchens where it
is employed to generate the high voltage needed for the magnetron
in microwave ovens. Other electrostatic accelerator related Nobel
prize winning developments that have had a major socio-economic
impact are; the electron microscope where the beams of electrons
are produced by an electrostatic accelerator, X-rays and computer
tomography (CT) scanners where the X-rays are produced using an
electron accelerator and microelectronic technology where ion
implantation is used to dope the semiconductor chips which form the
basis of our computers, mobile phones and entertainment systems.
Although the Electrostatic Accelerator field is over 90 years old,
and only a handful of accelerators are used for their original
purpose in nuclear physics, the field and the number of
accelerators is growing more rapidly than ever. The objective of
this book is to collect together the basic science and technology
that underlies the Electrostatic Accelerator field so it can serve
as a handbook, reference guide and textbook for accelerator
engineers as well as students and researchers who work with
Electrostatic Accelerators.
Our understanding of subatomic particles developed over many years,
although a clear picture of the different particles, their
interactions and their inter-relationships only emerged in the
latter part of the twentieth century. The first "subatomic
particles" to be investigated were those which exhibit readily
observable macroscopic behavior, specifically these are the photon,
which we observe as light and the electron, which is manifested as
electricity. The true nature of these particles, however, only
became clear within the last century or so. The development of the
Standard Model provided clarification of the way in which various
particles, specifically the hadrons, relate to one another and the
way in which their properties are determined by their structure.
The final piece, perhaps, of the final model, that is the means by
which some particles acquire mass, has just recently been clarified
with the observation of the Higgs boson. Since the 1970s it has
been known that the measured solar neutrino flux was inconsistent
with the flux predicted by solar models. The existence of neutrinos
with mass would allow for neutrino flavor oscillations and would
provide an explanation for this discrepancy. Only in the past few
years, has there been clear experimental evidence that neutrinos
have mass. The description of particle structure on the basis of
the Standard Model, along with recent discoveries concerning
neutrino properties, provides us with a comprehensive picture of
the properties of subatomic particles. Part I of the present book
provides an overview of the Standard Model of particle physics
including an overview of the discovery and properties of the Higgs
boson. Part II of the book summarizes the important investigations
into the physics of neutrinos and provides an overview of the
interpretation of these studies.
The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a mega-scale,
technically complex project, requiring large financial resources
and cooperation of thousands of scientists and engineers from all
over the world. Such a big and expensive project has to be
discussed publicly, and the planned goals have to be clearly
formulated. This book advocates for the demand for the project,
motivated by the current situation in particle physics. The natural
and most powerful way of obtaining new knowledge in particle
physics is to build a new collider with a larger energy. In this
approach, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was created and is now
operating at the world record center of-mass energy of 13 TeV.
Although the design of colliders with a larger energy of 50-100 TeV
has been discussed, the practical realization of such a project is
not possible for another 20-30 years. Of course, many new results
are expected from LHC over the next decade. However, we must also
think about other opportunities, and in particular, about the
construction of more dedicated experiments. There are many
potentially promising projects, however, the most obvious
possibility to achieve significant progress in particle physics in
the near future is the construction of a linear e+e- collider with
energies in the range (250-1000) GeV. Such a project, the ILC, is
proposed to be built in Kitakami, Japan. This book will discuss why
this project is important and which new discoveries can be expected
with this collider.
Terahertz (THz) radiation with frequencies between 100 GHz and 30
THz has developed into an important tool of science and technology,
with numerous applications in materials characterization, imaging,
sensor technologies, and telecommunications. Recent progress in THz
generation has provided ultrashort THz pulses with electric field
amplitudes of up to several megavolts/cm. This development opens
the new research field of nonlinear THz spectroscopy in which
strong light-matter interactions are exploited to induce quantum
excitations and/or charge transport and follow their nonequilibrium
dynamics in time-resolved experiments. This book introduces methods
of THz generation and nonlinear THz spectroscopy in a tutorial way,
discusses the relevant theoretical concepts, and presents
prototypical, experimental, and theoretical results in condensed
matter physics. The potential of nonlinear THz spectroscopy is
illustrated by recent research, including an overview of the
relevant literature.
This is an in-depth look at baryon number violation in the Standard
Model including the necessary background in finite temperature
field theory, plasma dynamics and how to calculate the out of
equilibrium evolution of particle number densities throughout a
phase transition. It is a self-contained pedagogical review of the
theoretical background to electroweak baryogenesis as well as a
summary of the other prevailing mechanisms for producing the
asymmetry between matter and antimatter using the Minimal
Supersymmetric Standard Model as a pedagogical tool whenever
appropriate.
Scattering theory provides a framework for understanding the
scattering of waves and particles. This book presents a simple
physical picture of diffractive nuclear scattering in terms of
semi-classical trajectories, illustrated throughout with examples
and case studies. Trajectories in a complex impact parameter plane
are discussed, and it stresses the importance of the analytical
properties of the phase shift function in this complex impact plane
in the asymptotic limit. Several new rainbow phenomena are also
discussed and illustrated. Written by Nobel Prize winner Roy J.
Glauber, and Per Osland, an expert in the field of particle
physics, the book illustrates the transition from quantum to
classical scattering, and provides a valuable resource for
researchers using scattering theory in nuclear, particle, atomic
and molecular physics.
While neutron halos were discovered 30 years ago, this is the first
book written on the subject of this exotic form of nuclei that
typically contain many more neutrons than stable isotopes of those
elements. It provides an introductory description of the halo and
outlines the discovery and evidence for its existence. It also
discusses different theoretical models of the halo's structure as
well as models and techniques in reaction theory that have allowed
us to study the halo. This is written at a level accessible to
graduate students starting a PhD in nuclear physics. Halo nuclei
are an exotic form of atomic nuclei that contain typically many
more neutrons than stable isotopes of those elements. To give you a
famous example, an atom of the element lithium has three electrons
orbiting a nucleus with three protons and, usually, either 3 or 4
neutrons. The difference in the number of neutrons gives us two
different isotopes of lithium, Li6 and Li7. But if you keep adding
neutrons to the nucleus you will eventually reach Li11, with still
3 protons (that means it's lithium) but with 8 neutrons. This
nucleus is so neutron-rich that the last two are very weakly bound
to the rest of the nucleus (a Li9 core). What happens is a quantum
mechanical effect: the two outer neutrons float around beyond the
rest of the nuclear core at a distance that is beyond the range of
the force that is holding them to the core. This is utterly
counterintuitive. It means the nucleus looks like a core plus
extended diffuse cloud of neutron probability: the halo. The author
of the book, Jim Al-Khalili, is a theoretician who published some
of the key papers on the structure of the halo in the mid and late
90s and was the first to determine its true size. This monograph is
based on review articles he has written on the mathematical models
used to determine the halo structure and the reactions used to
model that structure.
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