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In the first years after the discovery of radioactivity it became
clear that nuclear physics was, by excellence, the science of small
quantum systems. Between the fifties and the eighties nuclear
physics and elementary particles physics lived their own lives,
without much interaction. During this period the basic concepts
were defined. Recently, contrary to the specialization law often
observed in science, the overlap between nuclear and elementary
particle physics has become somewhat blurred.
This Les Houches Summer School was set up with the aim of fighting
off the excessive specialization evident in many international
meetings, and return to the roots. The twofold challenge of setting
up a fruitful exchange between experimentalists and theorists in
the first place, and between nuclear and hadronic matter physicists
in the second place was successfully met.
The volume presents high quality, up-to-date reviews starting with
an account of the birth and first developments of nuclear physics.
Further chapters discuss the description of the nuclear structure,
the physics of nuclei at very high spin, the existence of
super-heavy nuclei as a consequence of shell structure, liquid-gas
transition, including both a description and a review of the
experimental situation.
Other topics dealt with include the interactions between moderately
relativistic heavy ions, the concept of a nucleon dressed by a
cloud of pions, the presence of pions in the nucleus, the
subnucleonic phenomena in nuclei and quark-gluons deconfinement
transition, both theoretical and experimental aspects. Nuclear
physics continues to influence many other fields, such as
astrophysics, and is also inspired by these same fields. This
cross-fertilisation is illustrated by the treatment of neutron
stars in one of the final chapters. The last chapter provides an
overview of a recent development in which particle and nuclear
physicists have cooperated to revitalize an alternative method for
nuclear energy production associating high energy production
accelerators and sub-critical neutron multiplying assemblies.
This book describes the basic knowledge in nuclear, neutron, and
reactor physics necessary for understanding the principle and
implementation of accelerator driven subcritical nuclear reactors
(ADSRs), also known as hybrid reactors.
Since hybrid reactors may contribute to future nuclear energy
production, the book begins with a discussion of the general energy
problem. It proceeds by developing the elementary physics of
neutron reactors, including the basic nuclear physics involved. The
book then presents computational methods, with special emphasis on
Monte Carlo methods. It examines the specifics of ADSR, starting
from the neutron spallation source to safety features. A thorough
discussion is given on the size of hybrid reactors, which follows
very different constraints from that of critical reactors. The
possibility to optimize the source importance is examined in
detail. The discussion of the fuel evolution follows with its
relevance to safety and to the waste production and incineration.
The conditions for having a constant reactivity over sufficiently
long lapse of time are also discussed. The book also evaluates a
number of practical designs that have been proposed. Finally, the
last chapter deals with the examination of proposed and possible
waste transmutation policies and the role which could be played by
ADSR in this context. The potential advantage of the Thorium cycle
is discussed as well as different scenarios that could be used to
implement it.
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