Table of Contents

Preface.Notes.Physical Constants and Conversion Factors.1. Basic Concepts.1.1 History.1.2 Relativity and antiparticles.1.3 Symmetries and conversion laws.1.4 Interactions and Feynman diagrams.1.5 Particle exchange: forces and potentials.1.6 Observable quantities: cross sections and decay rates.1.7 Units: length, mass and energy.Problems.2. Nuclear Phenomenology.2.1 Mass spectroscopy and binding energies.2.2 Nuclear shapes and sizes.2.3 Nuclear instability.2.4 Radioactive decay.2.5 Semi-empirical mass formula: the liquid drop model.2.6 B-decay phenomenology.2.7 Fission.2.8 Y-decays.2.9 Nuclear reactions.Problems.3. Particle Phenomenology.3.1 Leptons3.2 Quarks.3.3 Hadrons.Problems.4. Experimental Methods.4.1 Overview.4.2 Accelerations and beams.4.3 Particle interactions with matter.4.4 Particle detectors.4.5 Layered detectors.Problems.5. Quark Dynamics: the Strong Interaction.5.1 Colour.5.2 Quantum chromodynamics (QCD).5.3 Heavy quark bound states.5.4 The strong coupling constant and asymptotic freedom.5.5 Jets and gluons.5.6 Colour counting.5.7 Deep inelastic scattering and nucleon structure.Problems.6. Electroweak Interactions.6.1 Charged and neutral currents.6.2 Symmetries of the weak interaction.6.3 Spin structure of the weak interactions.6.4 W and Zo bosons.6.5 Weak interactions of hadrons.6.6 Neutral messon decays.6.7 Neutral currents and the unified theory.Problems.7. Models and Theories of Nuclear Physics.7.1 The nucleon-nucleon potential.7.2 Fermi gas model.7.3 Shell model.7.4 Non-spherical nuclei.7.5 Summary of nuclear structure models.7.6 cx -decay.7.7 B-decay.7.8 Y-emission and internal conversion.Problems.8. Applications of Nuclear Physics.8.1 Fission.8.2 Fusion.8.3 Biomedical applications.Problems.9. Outstanding Questions and Future Prospects.9.1 Particle physics.9.2 Nuclear physics.Appendix A: Some Results in Quantum Mechanics.A.1 Barrier Penetration.A.2 Density of states.A.3 Perturbation theory and the second golden rule.Appendix B: Relativistic Kinematics.B.1 Morentz transformations and four-vectors.B.2 Frames of reference.B.3 Invariants.Problems.Appendix C: Rutherford Scattering.C.1 Classical physics.C.2 Quantum mechanics.Problems.Appendix D: Solutions to Problems.Bibliography.References.Index.

About the Author

Professor Brian R Martin, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, UK

Reviews

"Enthusiastically recommended as a useful addition to any college or university library." (CHOICE, December 2006)