This hands-on textbook introduces physics and nuclear engineering students to the experimental and theoretical aspects of fission physics for research and applications through worked examples and problem sets. The study of nuclear fission is currently undergoing a renaissance. Recent advances in the field create the opportunity to develop more reliable models of fission predictability and to supply measurements and data to critical applications including nuclear energy, national security and counter-proliferation, and medical isotope production. An Introduction to Nuclear Fission provides foundational knowledge for the next generation of researchers to contribute to nuclear fission physics.

This thesis covers several theoretical aspects of WIMP (weakly interacting massive particles) dark matter searches, with a particular emphasis on colliders. It mainly focuses on the use of effective field theories as a tool for Large Hadron Collider (LHC) searches, discussing in detail the issue of their validity, and on simplified dark matter models, which are receiving a growing attention from the physics community. It highlights the theoretical consistency of simplified models, which is essential in order to correctly exploit their potential and for them to be a common reference when comparing results from different experiments. This thesis is of interest to researchers (both theorists and experimentalists) in the field of dark matter searches, and offers a comprehensive introduction to dark matter and to WIMP searches for students and non-experts.

In addition to expanding and clarifying a number of sections of the first edition, it generalizes the analysis that eliminates the noncausal pre-acceleration so that it applies to removing any pre-deceleration as well. It also introduces a robust power series solution to the equation of motion that produces an extremely accurate solution to problems such as the motion of electrons in uniform magnetic fields.

This BriefBook is a much extended glossary or a much condensed handbook, depending on the way one looks at it. In encyclopedic format, it covers subjects in statistics, computing, analysis, and related fields, resulting in a book that is both an introduction and a reference for scientists and engineers, especially experimental physicists dealing with data analysis.

Drawing on the author 's forty-plus years of experience as a researcher in the interaction of charged particles with matter, this book emphasizes the theoretical description of fundamental phenomena. Special attention is given to classic topics such as Rutherford scattering; the theory of particle stopping; the statistical description of energy loss and multiple scattering and numerous more recent developments.

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.

This book comprehensively presents the concepts of neutron physics and imaging including neutron properties, neutron matter interaction, neutron imaging, comparison with X-ray and physics and design of neutron sources. It discusses how neutron imaging has gained importance as a powerful non-destructive technique to understand the internal structures of materials/engineered components in wide range of industries by increasing their applicability and efficiency. The book also covers the topics of neutron optics and detectors, basic principles of neutron radiography and tomography, related standards, safety, metrology and regulations in neutron imaging. The book presents applications of neutron imaging in the areas of aerospace industry, nuclear power and manufacturing industry, materials science and engineering, geomechanics, national security, biological, and medical domain. Given its scope, the book will be highly beneficial for postgraduate students, researchers and industry professionals working in the area of engineering and physics, especially non-destructive testing and non-destructive evaluation through neutron imaging.

This book introduces the physics and chemistry of plastic scintillators (fluorescent polymers) that are able to emit light when exposed to ionizing radiation, discussing their chemical modification in the early 1950s and 1960s, as well as the renewed upsurge in interest in the 21st century. The book presents contributions from various researchers on broad aspects of plastic scintillators, from physics, chemistry, materials science and applications, covering topics such as the chemical nature of the polymer and/or the fluorophores, modification of the photophysical properties (decay time, emission wavelength) and loading of additives to make the material more sensitive to, e.g., fast neutrons, thermal neutrons or gamma rays. It also describes the benefits of recent technological advances for plastic scintillators, such as nanomaterials and quantum dots, which allow features that were previously not achievable with regular organic molecules or organometallics.

It is clear that electron transfer chemisty is now one of the most active areas of chemical study. "Advances in Electron Transfer Chemistry" has been designed to allow scientists who are developing new knowledge in this rapidly expanding area to describe their most recent research findings. This volume will serve those interested in learning about current breakthroughs in this rapidly expanding area of chemical research.

In this thesis, the first measurement of the running of the top quark mass is presented. This is a fundamental quantum effect that had never been studied before. Any deviation from the expected behaviour can be interpreted as a hint of the presence of physics beyond the Standard Model. All relevant aspects of the analysis are extensively described and documented. This thesis also describes a simultaneous measurement of the inclusive top quark-antiquark production cross section and the top quark mass in the simulation. The measured cross section is also used to precisely determine the values of the top quark mass and the strong coupling constant by comparing to state-of-the-art theoretical predictions. All the theoretical and experimental aspects relevant to the results presented in this thesis are discussed in the initial chapters in a concise but complete way, which makes the material accessible to a wider audience.

The book gathers the lecture notes of the Les Houches Summer School that was held in August 2011 for an audience of advanced graduate students and post-doctoral fellows in particle physics, theoretical physics, and cosmology, areas where new experimental results were on the verge of being discovered at CERN. Every Les Houches School has its own distinct character. This one was held during a summer of great anticipation that at any moment contact might be made with the most recent theories of the nature of the fundamental forces and the structure of space-time. In fact, during the session, the long anticipated discovery of the Higgs particle was announced. The book vividly describes the fruitful and healthy "schizophrenia" that is the rule among the community of theoreticians who have split into several components: those doing phenomenology, and those dealing with highly theoretical problems, with a few trying to bridge both domains. The lectures by theoreticians covered many directions in the theory of elementary particles, from classics such as the Supersymmetric Standard Model to very recent ideas such as the relation between black holes, hydrodynamics, and gauge-gravity duality. The lectures by experimentalists explained in detail how intensively and how precisely the LHC collider has verified the theoretical predictions of the Standard Model, predictions that were at the front lines of experimental discovery during the 70's, 80's and 90's, and how the LHC is ready to make new discoveries. They described many of the ingenious and pioneering techniques developed at CERN for the detection and the data analysis of billions of billions of proton-proton collisions.

Shortlisted for the 2020 AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books Creating an element is no easy feat. It's the equivalent of firing six trillion bullets a second at a needle in a haystack, hoping the bullet and needle somehow fuse together, then catching it in less than a thousandth of a second - after which it's gone forever. Welcome to the world of the superheavy elements: a realm where scientists use giant machines and spend years trying to make a single atom of mysterious artefacts that have never existed on Earth. From the first elements past uranium and their role in the atomic bomb to the latest discoveries stretching our chemical world, Superheavy will reveal the hidden stories lurking at the edges of the periodic table. Why did the US Air Force fly planes into mushroom clouds? Who won the transfermium wars? How did an earthquake help give Japan its first element? And what happened when Superman almost spilled nuclear secrets? In a globe-trotting adventure that stretches from the United States to Russia, Sweden to Australia, Superheavy is your guide to the amazing science filling in the missing pieces of the periodic table. By the end you'll not only marvel at how nuclear science has changed our lives - you'll wonder where it's going to take us in the future.

This book reviews the experimental measurements of density, thermal conductivity, viscosity, and electrical conductivity on the binary, pseudo-binary melts of the most advanced IR-detector material systems of HgCdTe and HgZnTe as well as the theoretical analyses of these results. The time-dependent measurements on the relaxation behavior of the thermophysical properties during rapid cooling of the melts were also performed to elucidate the characteristics of the structural fluctuation and transition of the melts. The author shows his research results which extend understanding of the solidification process in order to interpret and improve the experimental results of crystal growth and enhances the fundamental knowledge of heterophase fluctuations phenomena in the melts so as to improve the melt growth processes of all the semiconductor systems. An in-depth study on the thermophysical properties and their time-dependent structural dynamic processes taking place in the vicinity of the solid-liquid phase transition of the narrow homogeneity range HgTe-based ternary semiconductors as well as the structural analysis of the alloy homogenization process in the melt is needed to understand and to improve the crystal growth processes. This book is intended for graduate students and professionals in materials science as well as engineers preparing and developing optical devices with semiconductors. The theory of heterophase fluctuations of liquids is applicable to any many-body systems including condensed-matter physics and field theory.

This book helps dispel the notion that collective phenomena, which have become increasingly important in modern storage rings, are an obscure and inaccessible topic. The book serves as a valuable guide on how to improve synchrotrons and other storage rings. Despite an emphasis on synchrotron light sources, the basic concepts presented here are valid for other facilities as well.

Powerful new techniques, including heavy ion and exotic beams, are pushing the frontiers of nuclear physics and opening up a wealth of new fields of research. After introductory chapters on theoretical and experimental aspects of nuclear collisions and beams, Exotic Nuclear Physics'' offers articles by experienced lecturers on forefront topics in nuclear physics, such as the conquest of the neutron and the proton drip-lines, nuclear astrophysics, the equation of state of hypernuclear matter, nuclear supersymmetry and chaotic motion in nuclei. This volume continues the successful tradition of published lecture notes from the Hispalensis International Summer School. It will benefit graduate students and lecturers in search of advanced material for self-study and courses as will as researchers in search of a modern and comprehensive source of reference.

This thesis presents a search for long-lived particles decaying into displaced electrons and/or muons with large impact parameters. This signature provides unique sensitivity to the production of theoretical lepton-partners, sleptons. These particles are a feature of supersymmetric theories, which seek to address unanswered questions in nature. The signature searched for in this thesis is difficult to identify, and in fact, this is the first time it has been probed at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). It covers a long-standing gap in coverage of possible new physics signatures. This thesis describes the special reconstruction and identification algorithms used to select leptons with large impact parameters and the details of the background estimation. The results are consistent with background, so limits on slepton masses and lifetimes in this model are calculated at 95% CL, drastically improving on the previous best limits from the Large Electron Positron Collider (LEP).

The International Conference on the History of Original Ideas and Basic Discoveries, held at the "Ettore Majorana" Centre for Scientific Culture in Erice, Sicily, July 27-August 4, 1994, brought together sixty of the leading scientists including many Nobel Laureates in high energy physics, principal contributors in other fields of physics such as high Tc superconductivity, particle accelerators and detector instrumentation, and thirty-six talented younger physicists selected from candidates throughout the world. The scientific program, including 49 lectures and a discussion session on the "Status and Future Directions in High Energy Physics" was inspired by the conference theme: The key experimental discoveries and theoretical breakthroughs of the last 50 years, in particle physics and related fields, have led us to a powerful description of matter in terms of three quark and three lepton families and four fundamental interactions. The most recent generation of experiments at e+e- and proton-proton colliders, and corresponding advances in theoretical calculations, have given us remarkably precise determinations of the basic parameters of the electroweak and strong interactions. These developments, while showing the striking internal consistency of the Standard Model, have also sharpened our view of the many unanswered questions which remain for the next generation: the origin and pattern of particle masses and families, the unification of the interactions including gravity, and the relation between the laws of physics and the initial conditions of the universe.

The essays in this open access volume identify the key ingredients for success in capitalizing on public investments in scientific projects and the development of large-scale research infrastructures. Investment in science - whether in education and training or through public funding for developing new research tools and technologies - is a crucial priority. Authors from big research laboratories/organizations, funding agencies and academia discuss how investing in science can produce societal benefits as well as identifying future challenges for scientists and policy makers. The volume cites different ways to assess the socio-economic impact of Research Infrastructures and their role as hubs of global collaboration, creativity and innovation. It highlights the different benefits stemming from fundamental research at the local, national and global level, while also inviting us to rethink the notion of "benefit" in the 21st century. Public investment is required to maintain the pace of technological and scientific advancements over the next decades. Far from advocating a radical transformation and massive expansion in funding, the authors suggest ways for maintaining a strong foundation of science and research to ensure that we continue to benefit from the outputs. The volume draws inspiration from the first "Economics of Big Science" workshop, held in Brussels in 2019 with the aim of creating a new space for dialogue and interaction between representatives of Big Science organizations, policy makers and academia. It aspires to provide useful reading for policy makers, scientists and students of science, who are increasingly called upon to explain the value of fundamental research and adopt the language and logic of economics when engaging in policy discussions.

This thesis describes the application of the collinear resonance laser spectroscopy to sensitively measure the electromagnetic nuclear observables of the neutron-rich indium isotopes 115-131In. This entailed a systematic study of the efficiency of resonant ionization schemes to extract the hyperfine structure of the isotopes, the atomic charge exchange process and benchmarking of modern atomic calculations with a laser ablation ion source. This allowed determination of the root-mean-square nuclear charge radii, nuclear magnetic dipole moments, nuclear electric quadrupole moments and nuclear spins of the 113-131In isotopes with high accuracy. With a proton hole in the Z = 50 nuclear shell closure of tin and several nuclear isomer states, these measurements of the indium (Z = 49) isotope chain provided an efficient probe of the evolution of nuclear structure properties towards and at the doubly-magic nuclear shell closure of 132Sn (N = 82) - revealing unpredicted changes.

This book presents proceedings from the XXIV DAE-BRNS High Energy Physics (HEP) Symposium 2020, held at the National Institute of Science Education and Research, Jatni, Odisha, India. The contributions cover a variety of topics in particle physics, astroparticle physics, cosmology and related areas from both experimental and theoretical perspectives, namely (1) Standard Model Physics, (2) Beyond Standard Model Physics, (3) Relativistic Heavy-Ion Physics & QCD, (4) Neutrino Physics, (5) Particle Astrophysics & Cosmology, (6) Detector Development Future Facilities and Experiments, (7) Formal Theory, (8) Societal Applications: Medical Physics, Imaging, etc.

This textbook on Feynman integrals starts from the basics, requiring only knowledge of special relativity and undergraduate mathematics. Feynman integrals are indispensable for precision calculations in quantum field theory. At the same time, they are also fascinating from a mathematical point of view. Topics from quantum field theory and advanced mathematics are introduced as needed. The book covers modern developments in the field of Feynman integrals. Topics included are: representations of Feynman integrals, integration-by-parts, differential equations, intersection theory, multiple polylogarithms, Gelfand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky systems, coactions and symbols, cluster algebras, elliptic Feynman integrals, and motives associated with Feynman integrals. This volume is aimed at a) students at the master's level in physics or mathematics, b) physicists who want to learn how to calculate Feynman integrals (for whom state-of-the-art techniques and computations are provided), and c) mathematicians who are interested in the mathematical aspects underlying Feynman integrals. It is, indeed, the interwoven nature of their physical and mathematical aspects that make Feynman integrals so enthralling.

In 1964, a mechanism explaining the origin of particle masses was proposed by Robert Brout, Francois Englert, and Peter W. Higgs. 48 years later, in 2012, the so-called Higgs boson was discovered in proton-proton collisions recorded by experiments at the LHC. Since then, its ability to interact with quarks remained experimentally unconfirmed. This book presents a search for Higgs bosons produced in association with top quarks tt H in data recorded with the CMS detector in 2016. It focuses on Higgs boson decays into bottom quarks H bb and top quark pair decays involving at least one lepton. In this analysis, a multiclass classification approach using deep learning techniques was applied for the first time. In light of the dominant background contribution from tt production, the developed method proved to achieve superior sensitivity with respect to existing techniques. In combination with searches in different decay channels, the presented work contributed to the first observations of tt H production and H bb decays.

A host of astrophysical measurements suggest that most of the matter in the Universe is an invisible, nonluminous substance that physicists call "dark matter." Understanding the nature of dark matter is one of the greatest challenges of modern physics and is of paramount importance to our theories of cosmology and particle physics. This text explores one of the leading hypotheses to explain dark matter: that it consists of ultralight bosons forming an oscillating field that feebly interacts with light and matter. Many new experiments have emerged over the last decade to test this hypothesis, involving state-of-the-art microwave cavities, precision nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements, dark matter "radios," and synchronized global networks of atomic clocks, magnetometers, and interferometers. The editors have gathered leading experts from around the world to present the theories motivating these searches, evidence about dark matter from astrophysics, and the diverse experimental techniques employed in searches for ultralight bosonic dark matter. The text provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this blossoming field of research for advanced undergraduates, beginning graduate students, or anyone new to the field, with tutorials and solved problems in every chapter. The multifaceted nature of the research - combining ideas and methods from atomic, molecular, and optical physics, nuclear physics, condensed matter physics, electrical engineering, particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology - makes this introductory approach attractive for beginning researchers as well as members of the broader scientific community. This is an open access book.

This thesis presents significant new observations of nuclear wobbling, and thus expands our understanding of nuclear triaxiality and its prevalence in the nuclear chart. Triaxial nuclear shapes are a very rare phenomena and their experimental identification often relies on two unique signatures - nuclear wobbling motion and chiral rotation. While nuclear chirality is a well-studied phenomenon, experimental observations of wobbling nuclei are rather limited. With the identification of 135Pr and 187Au as wobblers, this work establishes triaxiality to be a general phenomenon present in different regions of the nuclear chart, irrespective of any particular spin or deformation. A major focus of this work is the detailed investigation of the different kinds of wobbling modes. Depending on the geometry of the nuclear system, wobbling can be classified into two types - longitudinal and transverse. This work has, for the first time, reported evidence of the possible coexistence of both forms of wobbling in a single nucleus. Another important result reported in this work is the very first observation of co-existing chiral and wobbling modes in the 135Pr nucleus. This thesis details the experimental methods that led to this breakthrough, along with pertinent theoretical interpretations.

Elementary particle physics is a mature subject, with a wide variety of topics. Each topic in the textbook was selected for its accessibility to as wide an audience of interested readers as possible, without any compromise in mathematical sophistication. The text was supplemented by exercises at the end of each chapter, designed to increase the reader's skills and to instill in undergraduates an ability to enjoy this interesting subject.The present book works out the solutions to the exercises in the textbook and can be used for better comprehension of the topics.