Alpha-, Beta- and Gamma-Ray Spectroscopy Volume 1 offers a comprehensive account of radioactivity and related low-energy phenomena. It summarizes progress in the field of alpha-, beta- and gamma-ray spectroscopy, including the discovery of the non-conservation of parity, as well as new experimental methods that elucidate the processes of weak interactions in general and beta-decay in particular. Comprised of 14 chapters, the book presents experimental methods and theoretical discussions and calculations to maintain the link between experiment and theory. It begins with a discussion of the interaction of electrons and alpha particles with matter. The book explains the elastic scattering of electrons by atomic nuclei and the interaction between gamma-radiation and matter. It then introduces topic on beta-ray spectrometer theory and design and crystal diffraction spectroscopy of nuclear gamma rays. Moreover, the book discusses the applications of the scintillation counter; proportional counting in gases; and the general processes and procedures used in determining disintegration schemes through a study of the beta- and gamma-rays emitted. In addition, it covers the nuclear shell model; collective nuclear motion and the unified model; and alpha-decay conservation laws. The emissions of gamma-radiation during charged particle bombardment and from fission fragments, as well as the neutron-capture radiation spectroscopy, are also explained. Experimentalists will find this book extremely useful.

Dramatic progress has been made in all branches of physics since the National Research Council's 1986 decadal survey of the field. The Physics in a New Era series explores these advances and looks ahead to future goals. The series includes assessments of the major subfields and reports on several smaller subfields, and preparation has begun on an overview volume on the unity of physics, its relationships to other fields, and its contributions to national needs. Nuclear Physics is the latest volume of the series. The book describes current activity in understanding nuclear structure and symmetries, the behavior of matter at extreme densities, the role of nuclear physics in astrophysics and cosmology, and the instrumentation and facilities used by the field. It makes recommendations on the resources needed for experimental and theoretical advances in the coming decade.

Nuclei and nuclear reactions offer a unique setting for investigating three (and in some cases even all four) of the fundamental forces in nature. Nuclei have been shown – mainly by performing scattering experiments with electrons, muons and neutrinos – to be extended objects with complex internal structures: constituent quarks; gluons, whose exchange binds the quarks together; sea-quarks, the ubiquitous virtual quark-antiquark pairs and last but not least, clouds of virtual mesons, surrounding an inner nuclear region, their exchange being the source of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. The interplay between the (mostly attractive) hadronic nucleon-nucleon interaction and the repulsive Coulomb force is responsible for the existence of nuclei; their degree of stability, expressed in the details and limits of the chart of nuclides; their rich structure and the variety of their interactions. Despite the impressive successes of the classical nuclear models and of ab-initio approaches, there is clearly no end in sight for either theoretical or experimental developments as shown e.g. by the recent need to introduce more sophisticated three-body interactions to account for an improved picture of nuclear structure and reactions. Yet, it turns out that the internal structure of the nucleons has comparatively little influence on the behavior of the nucleons in nuclei and nuclear physics – especially nuclear structure and reactions – is thus a field of science in its own right, without much recourse to subnuclear degrees of freedom. This book collects essential material that was presented in the form of lectures notes in nuclear physics courses for graduate students at the University of Cologne. It follows the course's approach, conveying the subject matter by combining experimental facts and experimental methods and tools with basic theoretical knowledge. Emphasis is placed on the importance of spin and orbital angular momentum (leading e.g. to applications in energy research, such as fusion with polarized nuclei) and on the operational definition of observables in nuclear physics. The end-of-chapter problems serve above all to elucidate and detail physical ideas that could not be presented in full detail in the main text. Readers are assumed to have a working knowledge of quantum mechanics and a basic grasp of both non-relativistic and relativistic kinematics; the latter in particular is a prerequisite for interpreting nuclear reactions and the connections to particle and high-energy physics.

Direct Nuclear Reactions deals with the theory of direct nuclear reactions, their microscopic aspects, and their effect on the motions of the individual nucleons. The principal results of the theory are described, with emphasis on the approximations involved to understand how well the theory can be expected to hold under specific experimental conditions. Applications to the analysis of experiments are also considered. This book consists of 19 chapters and begins by explaining the difference between direct and compound nuclear reactions. The reader is then introduced to the theory of plane waves, some results of scattering theory, and the phenomenological optical potential. The following chapters focus on form factors and their nuclear structure content; the basis of the optical potential as an effective interaction; reactions such as inelastic single- and two-nucleon transfer reactions; the effect of nuclear correlations; and the role of multiple-step reactions. The theory of inelastic scattering and the relationship between the effective and free interactions are also discussed, along with reactions between heavy ions and the polarizability of nuclear wave functions during a heavy-ion reaction. This monograph will be of interest to nuclear physicists.

This book attempts to cover the fascinating field of physics of relativistic heavy ions, mainly from the experimentalist's point of view. After the introductory chapter on quantum chromodynamics, basic properties of atomic nuclei, sources of relativistic nuclei, and typical detector set-ups are described in three subsequent chapters. Experimental facts on collisions of relativistic heavy ions are systematically presented in 15 consecutive chapters, starting from the simplest features like cross sections, multiplicities, and spectra of secondary particles and going to more involved characteristics like correlations, various relatively rare processes, and newly discovered features: collective flow, high pT suppression and jet quenching. Some entirely new topics are included, such as the difference between neutron and proton radii in nuclei, heavy hypernuclei, and electromagnetic effects on secondary particle spectra.Phenomenological approaches and related simple models are discussed in parallel with the presentation of experimental data. Near the end of the book, recent ideas about the new state of matter created in collisions of ultrarelativistic nuclei are discussed. In the final chapter, some predictions are given for nuclear collisions in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), now in construction at the site of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Geneva. Finally, the appendix gives us basic notions of relativistic kinematics, and lists the main international conferences related to this field. A concise reference book on physics of relativistic heavy ions, it shows the present status of this field.