Fundamentals in Nuclear Physics - From Nuclear Structure to Cosmology - Basdevant, Rich, Spiro.pdf - Nuclear Energy Books - WMatrixie

Fundamentals in Nuclear Physics

The Ecole Polytechnique, one of France’s top academic institutions, has a long-

standing tradition of producing exceptional scientific textbooks for its students.

The original lecture notes, the Cours de l’Ecole Polytechnique , which were written

by Cauchy and Jordan in the nineteenth century, are considered to be landmarks

in the development of mathematics.

The present series of textbooks is remarkable in that the texts incorporate the

most recent scientific advances in courses designed to provide undergraduate

students with the foundations of a scientific discipline. An outstanding level of

quality is achieved in each of the seven scientific fields taught at the Ecole : pure

and applied mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, biology, and econom-

ics. The uniform level of excellence is the result of the unique selection of aca-

demic staff there which includes, in addition to the best researchers in its own

renowned laboratories, a large number of world-famous scientists, appointed as

part-time professors or associate professors, who work in the most advanced

research centers France has in each field.

Another distinctive characteristics of these courses is their overall consistency;

each course makes appropriate use of relevant concepts introduced in the other

textbooks. This is because each student at the Ecole Polytechnique has to acquire

basic knowledge in the seven scientific fields taught there, so a substantial link

between departments is necessary. The distribution of these courses used to be

restricted to the 900 students at the Ecole. Some years ago we were very success-

ful in making these courses available to a larger French-reading audience. We

now build on this success by making these textbooks also available in English.

Jean-Louis Basdevant

James Rich

Michel Spiro

Fundamentals

In Nuclear Physics

From Nuclear Structure to Cosmology

With 184 Figures

Prof. Jean-Louis Basdevant

Ecole Polytechnique

D ´ partement de Physique

Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet

91128 Palaiseau

France

jean-louis.basdevant@polytechnique.edu

Dr. James Rich

Dapnia-SPP

CEA-Saclay

91191 Gif-sur-Yvette

France

rich@hep.saclay.cea.fr

Dr. Michel Spiro

IN2P3-CNRS

3 Rue Michel-Ange

75794 Paris cedex 16

France

mspiro@admin.in2p3.fr

Cover illustration: Background image—Photograph of Supernova 1987A Rings. Photo credit Chris-

topher Burrows (ESA/STScI) and NASA, Hubble Space Telescope, 1994. Smaller images, from top

to bottom—Photograph of Supernova Blast. Photo credit Chun Shing Jason Pun (NASA/GSFC),

Robert P. Kirshner (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), and NASA, 1997. Interior of

chamber at the Nova laser fusion facility (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, USA). Inside

the combustion chamber at the Nova laser fusion facility (Lawrence Livermore National Labora-

tory, USA) The Euratom Joint Research Centres and Associated Centre.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Basdevant, J.-L. (Jean-Louis)

Fundamentals in nuclear physics / J.-L. Basdevant, J. Rich, M. Spiro.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-387-01672-4 (alk. paper)

1. Nuclear physics. I. Rich, James, 1952– II. Spiro, M. (Michel) III. Title.

QC173.B277 2004

539.7—dc22

2004056544

ISBN 0-387-01672-4

Printed on acid-free paper.

written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 233 Spring Street, New

York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis.

Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, com-

puter software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is for-

bidden.

The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if

they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not

they are subject to proprietary rights.

Printed in the United States of America.

(EB)

987654321 SPIN 10925645

springeronline.com

Preface

Nuclear physics began one century ago during the “miraculous decade” be-

tween 1895 and 1905 when the foundations of practically all modern physics

were established. The period started with two unexpected spinoﬀs of the

Crooke’s vacuum tube: Roentgen’s X-rays (1895) and Thomson’s electron

(1897), the ﬁrst elementary particle to be discovered. Lorentz and Zeemann

developed the the theory of the electron and the inﬂuence of magnetism on

radiation. Quantum phenomenology began in December, 1900 with the ap-

pearance of Planck’s constant followed by Einstein’s 1905 proposal of what

is now called the photon. In 1905, Einstein also published the theories of

relativity and of Brownian motion, the ultimate triumph of Boltzman’s sta-

tistical theory, a year before his tragic death. For nuclear physics, the critical

discovery was that of radioactivity by Becquerel in 1896.

By analyzing the history of science, one can be convinced that there is

some rationale in the fact that all of these discoveries came nearly simul-

taneously, after the scientiﬁcally triumphant 19th century. The exception is

radioactivity, an unexpected baby whose discovery could have happened sev-

eral decades earlier.

Talented scientists, the Curies, Rutherford, and many others, took the ob-

servation of radioactivity and constructed the ideas that are the subject of this

book. Of course, the discovery of radioactivity and nuclear physics is of much

broader importance. It lead directly to quantum mechanics via Rutherford’s

planetary atomic model and Bohr’s interpretation of the hydrogen spectrum.

This in turn led to atomic physics, solid state physics, and material science.

Nuclear physics had the important by-product of elementary particle physics

and the discovery of quarks, leptons, and their interactions. These two ﬁelds

are actually impossible to dissociate, both in their conceptual and in their

experimental aspects.

The same “magic decade” occurred in other sectors of human activity. The

second industrial revolution is one aspect, with the development of radio and

telecommunications. The automobile industry developed at the same period,

with Daimler, Benz, Panhard and Peugeot. The Wright brothers achieved a

dream of mankind and opened the path of a revolution in transportation.

Medicine and biology made incredible progress with Louis Pasteur and many

others. In art, we mention the ﬁrst demonstration of the “cinematographe”

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