Relativity plays an important role in atomic nuclei, and, since the early 1970s, there has been increasing interest in, and literature on, the nucleus as a relativistic system. In fact, the relativistic treatment provides a powerful method to describe nuclear structure and reactions. It is thus an ideal time to collect and review the important landmarks in this book. Directed to advanced students and researchers, it explains both the underlying relativistic theory and compares predictions with actual experiments.
Comprises a comprehensive reference source that unifies the entire fields of atomic molecular and optical (AMO) physics, assembling the principal ideas, techniques and results of the field. 92 chapters written by about 120 authors present the principal ideas, techniques and results of the field, together with a guide to the primary research literature (carefully edited to ensure a uniform coverage and style, with extensive cross-references). Along with a summary of key ideas, techniques, and results, many chapters offer diagrams of apparatus, graphs, and tables of data. From atomic spectroscopy to applications in comets, one finds contributions from over 100 authors, all leaders in their respective disciplines. Substantially updated and expanded since the original 1996 edition, it now contains several entirely new chapters covering current areas of great research interest that barely existed in 1996, such as Bose-Einstein condensation, quantum information, and cosmological variations of the fundamental constants. A fully-searchable CD- ROM version of the contents accompanies the handbook.
This book aims to provide a detailed introduction to the state-of-the-art covariant density functional theory, which follows the Lorentz invariance from the very beginning and is able to describe nuclear many-body quantum systems microscopically and self-consistently. Covariant density functional theory was introduced in nuclear physics in the 1970s and has since been developed and used to describe the diversity of nuclear properties and phenomena with great success.In order to provide an advanced and updated textbook of covariant density functional theory for graduate students and nuclear physics researchers, this book summarizes the enormous amount of material that has accumulated in the field of covariant density functional theory over the last few decades as well as the latest developments in this area. Moreover, the book contains enough details for readers to follow the formalism and theoretical results, and provides exhaustive references to explore the research literature.
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.
Understanding of protons and neutrons, or "nucleons"â€"the building blocks of atomic nucleiâ€"has advanced dramatically, both theoretically and experimentally, in the past half century. A central goal of modern nuclear physics is to understand the structure of the proton and neutron directly from the dynamics of their quarks and gluons governed by the theory of their interactions, quantum chromodynamics (QCD), and how nuclear interactions between protons and neutrons emerge from these dynamics. With deeper understanding of the quark-gluon structure of matter, scientists are poised to reach a deeper picture of these building blocks, and atomic nuclei themselves, as collective many-body systems with new emergent behavior. The development of a U.S. domestic electron-ion collider (EIC) facility has the potential to answer questions that are central to completing an understanding of atoms and integral to the agenda of nuclear physics today. This study assesses the merits and significance of the science that could be addressed by an EIC, and its importance to nuclear physics in particular and to the physical sciences in general. It evaluates the significance of the science that would be enabled by the construction of an EIC, its benefits to U.S. leadership in nuclear physics, and the benefits to other fields of science of a U.S.-based EIC.
Atomic and nuclear physics are two flourishing but distinct branches of physics; the subject of isotope shifts in atomic spectra is one of the few that links these two branches. It is a subject that has been studied for well over fifty years, but interest in the subject, far from flagging, has been stimulated in recent years. Fast computers have enabled theoreticians to evaluate the properties of many-electron atoms, and laser spectroscopy has made it possible to measure isotope shifts in the previously unmeasurable areas of very rare isotopes, short-lived radioactive isotopes, weak transitions, and transitions involving high-lying atomic levels. Isotope shifts can now be measured with greater accuracy than before in both optical transitions and x-ray transitions of muonic atoms; this improved accuracy is revealing new facets of the subject. I am very grateful to Dr. H. G. Kuhn, F. R. S. , for having introduced me to the subject in the 1950s, and for supervising my efforts to measure isotope shifts in the spectrum of ruthenium. I thus approach the subject as an experimental atomic spectroscopist. This bias is obviously apparent in my use of the spectroscopist's notation of lower-upper for a transition, rather than the nuclear physicist's upper-lower. My reasons are given in Section 1. 3 and I hope that nuclear physicists will forgive me for using this notation even for muonic x-ray transitions.
University Physics is a three-volume collection that meets the scope and sequence requirements for two- and three-semester calculus-based physics courses. Volume 1 covers mechanics, sound, oscillations, and waves. Volume 2 covers thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism, and Volume 3 covers optics and modern physics. This textbook emphasizes connections between between theory and application, making physics concepts interesting and accessible to students while maintaining the mathematical rigor inherent in the subject. Frequent, strong examples focus on how to approach a problem, how to work with the equations, and how to check and generalize the result. The text and images in this textbook are grayscale.
This book provides an introduction to the essentials of relativistic effects in quantum chemistry, and a reference work that collects all the major developments in this field. It is designed for the graduate student and the computational chemist with a good background in nonrelativistic theory. In addition to explaining the necessary theory in detail, at a level that the non-expert and the student should readily be able to follow, the book discusses the implementation of the theory and practicalities of its use in calculations. After a brief introduction to classical relativity and electromagnetism, the Dirac equation is presented, and its symmetry, atomic solutions, and interpretation are explored. Four-component molecular methods are then developed: self-consistent field theory and the use of basis sets, double-group and time-reversal symmetry, correlation methods, molecular properties, and an overview of relativistic density functional theory. The emphases in this section are on the basics of relativistic theory and how relativistic theory differs from nonrelativistic theory. Approximate methods are treated next, starting with spin separation in the Dirac equation, and proceeding to the Foldy-Wouthuysen, Douglas-Kroll, and related transformations, Breit-Pauli and direct perturbation theory, regular approximations, matrix approximations, and pseudopotential and model potential methods. For each of these approximations, one-electron operators and many-electron methods are developed, spin-free and spin-orbit operators are presented, and the calculation of electric and magnetic properties is discussed. The treatment of spin-orbit effects with correlation rounds off the presentation of approximate methods. The book concludes with a discussion of the qualitative changes in the picture of structure and bonding that arise from the inclusion of relativity.
This book focuses on the need for and development of a rigorous Nonequilibrium Thermodynamic Theory, as a foundation on which to construct a relativistic particle theory that in turn serves as a self-consistent basis for our reasoning in the quantum, cosmological and life sciences, at the farthest extremes of organized complexity ? and the farthest removes from equilibrium. In Part I, Dr. Hamilton develops general principles and laws, extending those of Classical Thermodynamics, which govern the origin and evolution of systems far from equilibrium. And he shows that these principles act collectively with Heisenberg?s indeterminacy principle, as a Nonequilibrium Thermodynamic Imperative (NTI), a creative driving force in the expansion and evolution of the Universe. In Part II, he proposes fundamental assumptions, alternatives to those in the Standard Model, that lead, seamlessly and self-consistently, to the origin and evolution of the quantum Universe and its transition to the scalar expansion of the Cosmos, in which the force of gravity plays a central role. On this foundation, Part III develops a rational quantum theory in which Gravitational and Symmetry Bound Photons (GSBP) constitute the most fundamental particles in the Universe as dimensional composite fermions (quarks, electrons and positrinos) and bosons, and enabling a GSBP-Schroedinger enhanced description of the dynamics of atomic and molecular systems. And in Part IV, Dr. Hamilton develops a physical, molecular theory of the origin and evolution of life on the early Earth which accounts in natural geophysical terms for the critically important homochirality of all the amino acids in present-day living cells. The Nonequilibrium Thermodynamic Imperative drives and undergirds all creative action, at all levels, from quantum to cosmological, in the expanding Universe, including the Darwinian Natural Selection of species on Earth in which the NTI plays a fundamental physical role.
This second volume of Howard Carmichael’s work continues the development of the methods used in quantum optics to treat open quantum systems and their fluctuations. Its early chapters build upon the phase-space methods introduced in Volume 1. Written on a level suitable for debut researchers or students in an advanced course in quantum optics, or a course in quantum mechanics or statistical physics that deals with open quantum systems.
