Physics U613 -- Particle and Nuclear Physics -- Spring 2008
Syllabus -- Professor Vaughn
Final Exam -- Thursday, 24 April at 8:00 am
Any conflicts in your final exam schedule should be reported immediately both to me and to the Registrar (also known as 'Student Central') in 120 HAyden immediately.
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This page has the reading assignments, problems, quiz schedules and exam
schedules for the lecture part of Physics U613 -- Particle and Nuclear Physics -- for the Spring 2008 semester.
Reading assignments are from the textbook
Nuclear and Particle Physics: An Introduction, by
Brian R. Martin (Wiley, 2007)
Week 1 (7 - 10 January) History; Background Physics
We give a brief discussion of the historical background leading to the study of nuclear physics. You can read section 1.1 of Martin for some further history, as well as the first chapter of the book by Richtmyer, Kennard and Cooper on the reserve in the library. Section 2.4 of Martin discusses the radioactive decay law. Sec. 7.3.1 has a very brief summary of the shell structure of atoms.
Week 2+3 (14 - 24 January) Nuclear Phenomenology
We will cover most of the material in chapter 2 in the next three lectures, and the first homework assignment will appear during week 2.
The discussion of nuclear sizes and shapes in sec. 2.2 talks about scattering data -- if you are unfamiliar with the concept of a scattering cross-section, have a look at sec. 1.6.2, and I will also give a discussion in class.
Note. There are no classes on Monday, 21 January (Martin Luther King Day)
The first homework assignment is due Thursday, January 24.
Week 4 (28 - 31 January) Nuclear Reactions and Excited States; the Nucleon-Nucleon potential
We will discuss more about nuclear reactions and how they can be used to observe unstable states of nuclei. In addition to sec. 2.9 (pp. 62-67) of Martin on nuclear reactions, have a look at secs. 1.6.2 on cross-sections and especially sec. 1.6.3 on the Breit-Wigner formula -- don't worry about the quantum mechanics for now, we will come back to it later.
One of the reasons nuclear physics has more models and less formal theory is that the interaction between nucleons is not as simple as the Coulomb force between charged particles. Some first ideas about the N-N interaction are in Martin sec. 1.5 (pp. 16-20) and sec. 7.1 (pp. 217-220).
The second homework assignment is due Monday, February 4.
Week 5 (4 - 7 February) Nuclear Structure
We will discuss some simple models of nuclear structure properties. Sections 7.2
and 7.3 of Martin are a good introduction to the discussion, and you should
try to read them early. We will discuss briefly non-spherical nuclei (sec. 7.4).
You should read the summary of nuclear structure models (sec. 7.5)
The third homework assignment is due Monday, February 11.
Week 6 (11 - 15 February) Nuclear Decays; magnetic moments; isospin
We will outline some theoretical ideas about the three common forms of nuclear
decay --
1. alpha decay -- read sec. 7.6, both the derivation of the Geiger-Nuttall rule,
and the strong preference for the decay to proceed from the initial nucleus
to a state of the daughter nucleus with the same angular momentum and parity.
2. beta-decay -- skim section sec. 7.7 -- the important point here is that the momentum of the electron or positron emitted in the decay is not unique, but distributed according to a spectrum that can be used to extract useful information about the initial, and final nuclei, and
3. gamma-decay -- sec. 7.8 -- here the important point is that there are selection rules that relate the multipolarity of the electromagnetic radiation to the change in angular momentum and parity between initial and final states of the nucleus. Also, the existence of the internal conversion process that enables radiative transitions from J = 0 to J = 0 to occur.
There will be a discussion of isospin and nuclear magnetic moments that is not
really covered in the book.
The fourth homework assignment is due Thursday, February 21.
Note. There are no classes on Monday, 18 February (Presidents' Day)
Weeks 7-8 (21 - 28 February) Mesons and Baryons; pre-quark history
You should read about parity (sec. 1.3.1) and charge conjugation (1.3.2), and
then skip to sec. 3.3 on hadrons (the generic terms for strongly interacting
mesons and baryons). I will fill in some of the gaps in the history of how
we went from the nuclear physics of the mid 20th century to the quark model
described in the book, which was developed mostly in the 1960s and 1970s.
The midterm exam will be on Thursday, 28 February. As announced in class, the exam will last 60 minutes, after which I will discuss some topics in particle physics and hand out the next problem set.
Note. There are no classes in the week March 3 - 7
Week 9 (10 - 13 March) Quarks and Leptons
We will introduce the constituent quark model as it was used to describe the
hadrons known in the 1960s. This model involves the u, d and s quarks, as they are known today. We will discuss mass formulas and the explanation of the baryon magnetic moments in terms of this model, and also note that the explanation of the magnetic moments was one of the pieces of experimental evidence that led to the discovery of color. You should read sections 3.2 and 3.3 in Martin for an outline of this discussion. Then we will start a discussion of leptons (section 3.2)
Week 10 (17 - 20 March) Quantum Field Theory and Weak Interactions
First I will give a qualitative introduction to relativistic quantum field theory (QFT), and the Feynman diagrams that are used to describe the perturbation series (read section 1.l.4). I will then describe the theory of weak interactions at the quark level in terms of the weak vector bosons W
and Z, and discuss questions of invariance under parity (P) and
charge conjugation (C). Then two examples of particle mixing: (i) the
mixing of K0 and K0-bar in terms of CP eigenstates, and (ii) the mixing of
quark states in the weak interactions in terms of the Cabibbo angle.
Week 11 (24 - 27 March) Quarks and Gluons; QCD and Strong Interactions
The main topic will be the introduction of gluons as the vector gauge field
associated with the exact SU(3) color symmetry of the quarks, and a qualitative
introduction to the gauge theory of strong interactions known as quantum
chromodynamics (or QCD for short). I will then describe various properties
of the strong interactions as elaborated in section 5.1 - 5.6 of Martin.
I will also discuss qualitatively the use of deep inelastic scattering
of electrons off protons to uncover the quark structure of the proton, but
will not go into the full detail of section 5.7.
The seventh homework assignment is due Thursday, April 3.
Week 12 (31 March - 3 April) Unification of Weak and Electromagnetic Interactions; the Standard Model
We will summmarize the ingredients of the standard model -- quarks, leptons,
gauge bosons (photon, gluons, weak vector bosons), and the Higgs boson associated with the broken symmetry of the weak interactions -- the Higgs boson has not yet been observed, and may not be precisely the same as that of the minimal standard model -- we are awaiting answers to the nature of the Higgs from the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Week 13+14 (7 - 14 April) Beyond the Standard Model; Nuclear Reactions in Stars
This week we will discuss topics that are still at the forefront of current research. Various possibilities for new physics beyond the standard model
will be mentioned -- see chapter 9 in Martin (pp. 297-315) for more details.
we hope that some of these possibilities will be observed at LHC, scheduled
to start running this year (2008). We will also discuss cycles of nuclear fusion reactions that are responsible for energy production in stars -- see Martin sec. 8.2 (pp. 266 - 273) for more info.
Final Exam -- Thursday, 24 April at 8:00 am
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latest update 25 April 2008.