Nuclear Forces. The deuteron. Rutherford and Nucleon-nucleon scattering. Reference frames and transformations. Lorentz transformations and invariance of cross section. Introduction to isospin.
Static properties of nuclei. Nuclear binding energy. The Nuclear Liquid Drop Model. Fusion and Fission as possible sources of energy. Energetics and kinematics of nuclear reactions.. Radioactive decay. Lab activity dedicated to the determination of the muon lifetime by means of a fit.
Knowledge acquired: basic concepts of Sub-atomic Physics and of the relevant phenomenology
Competence acquired: understanding of simple physical models for Subatomic Physics and familiarity with basic phenomenology
Skills acquired (at the end of the course): use of
of basic quantum-mechanical techniques for the quantitative description of some selected and simple study cases of Sub-atomic Physics
Prerequisites
Courses required: Mathematical Analysis II, Analytical mechanics, Physics II
Courses recommended: all the preceding courses
in the didactic organization
Teaching Methods
CFU: 6 (2 for laboratory)
Total hours of the course (including the time spent in attending lectures, seminars, private study, examinations, etc...): 140
Contact hours for: Lectures (hours): 38
Laboratory: 10 hours (lectures: 6 hours, not included in the aforementioned 38 hours, lab. Work: 4 hours).
Further information
Office hours: by appointment via e-mail.
Website: --
Type of Assessment
Oral exam, including a numeric exercise and description of lab activity, including fit of the muon lifetime.
Course program
Nuclear Forces: an introduction, starting from the known properties of the bound state of the deuteron, the phenomenology of the nucleon-nucleon collisions and the static properties of the nuclei. Introduction to Isospin. The binding energy of the nucleus. Systematics of the binding energies. The nuclear Liquid Drop Model. Fusion and fission as possible energy sources. Examples of fusion and fission processes. Nuclear reactions (outline). Simple applications of relativistic kinematics to nuclear reactions. Photo disassociation of the deuteron and n-p fusion. Transformation of the reference frame and cross sections.
Law of radioactive decay and examples. Alpha decay.
Data analysis of the muon life-time measurement. Calibration of a
Time to Digital Converter, muon life histogram fit, including causal coincidences, fit after "a priori" correction of casual coincidences, fit taking into account nuclear absorption of negative muons. Explanation of simple C programs for calibration and data analysis of the experience.