This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

This handbook is a comprehensive, systematic source of modern nuclear physics. It aims to summarize experimental and theoretical discoveries and an understanding of unstable nuclei and their exotic structures, which were opened up by the development of radioactive ion (RI) beam in the late 1980s. The handbook comprises three major parts. In the first part, the experiments and measured facts are well organized and reviewed. The second part summarizes recognized theories to explain the experimental facts introduced in the first part. Reflecting recent synergistic progress involving both experiment and theory, the chapters both parts are mutually related. The last part focuses on cosmo-nuclear physics—one of the mainstream subjects in modern nuclear physics. Those comprehensive topics are presented concisely. Supported by introductory reviews, all chapters are designed to present their topics in a manner accessible to readers at the graduate level. The book therefore serves as a valuable source for beginners as well, helping them to learn modern nuclear physics.

A self-contained guide to the role played by neutrinos in the Universe and how their properties influence cosmological and astrophysical observations.

The search for neutrinoless double beta decay is one of the highest priority areas in particle physics today; it could provide insights to the nature of neutrino masses (currently not explained by the Standard Model) as well as how the universe survived its early stages. One promising experimental approach involves the use of large volumes of isotope-loaded liquid scintillator, but new techniques for background identification and suppression must be developed in order to reach the required sensitivity levels and clearly distinguish the signal. The results from this thesis constitute a significant advance in this area, laying the groundwork for several highly effective and novel approaches based on a detailed evaluation of state-of-the-art detector characteristics. This well written thesis includes a particularly clear and comprehensive description of the theoretical motivations as well as impressively demonstrating the effective use of diverse statistical techniques. The professionally constructed signal extraction framework contains clever algorithmic solutions to efficient error propagation in multi-dimensional space. In general, the techniques developed in this work will have a notable impact on the field.

Reviews the current state of knowledge of neutrino masses and the related question of neutrino oscillations. After an overview of the theory of neutrino masses and mixings, detailed accounts are given of the laboratory limits on neutrino masses, astrophysical and cosmological constraints on those masses, experimental results on neutrino oscillations, the theoretical interpretation of those results, and theoretical models of neutrino masses and mixings. The book concludes with an examination of the potential of long-baseline experiments. This is an essential reference text for workers in elementary-particle physics, nuclear physics, and astrophysics.

Launched in 2013, Frontiers in Physics consists of 18 specialties covering all areas of research in physics. With over 500 published manuscripts, the journal is now indexed in SCIE with the first impact factor coming in 2019. Frontiers in Physics aims to become the largest and most cited open access multidisciplinary physics journal. This eBook collects what the Specialty Chief Editors of the journal believed were the most interesting manuscripts published over the past two years. It is a nice collection, which will offer the reader the chance to have a quick overview of the specialties of the journal and offer a glimpse into the state of the art of physics. We must confess that it has been quite challenging to select only one article per specialty section given the many important manuscripts published by the journal in 2017 and 2018. We invite our reader to have a look at the journal homepage and browse what we have published so far. It includes articles on topics very different from each other, written by both early career scientists and well-known researchers, ranging from the indisputable advance of the field to the more bold. We hope you enjoy reading our first edition of the Frontiers in Physics Editor's Choice eBook! Professor Alex Hansen (Field Chief Editor) and Dr Claudio Bogazzi (Journal Manager)

"This volume offers a valuable insight into various aspects of the ongoing work directed at measuring neutrino mass. It took twenty years to refute the assertions of Bethe and Peierls that neutrinos were not observable, but it has since been realised that much can be learnt from these particles. The moral is, as Fiorini argues here, that the study of neutrinos was and remains demanding but rewarding. Subjects addressed in this volume include: clarifying the meaning of the Klapdor-Kleingrothaus results, probing the Majorana nature of neutrinos, observing lepton number violating effects for the first time, studying the end point of the spectrum in the search for neutrino masses and speculating whether it is possible to measure neutrino masses in cosmology. Lectures are enriched with rich historical overviews and valuable introductory material. Attention is also given to theoretical topics such as the evolution of the concept of mass in particle physics, a status report on neutrino oscillations and current discussion on neutrino masses. The reader is further reminded that neutrino masses may also have some bearing on the very origin of the matter among us, and have many deep links with other important lines of current physics research." --Book Jacket.