An Introduction to Nuclear Physics

AN INTRODUCTION TO NUCLEAR PHYSICS explores the nucleus - its size, shape and structure, its static and dynamic properties, its interaction with external system (particles and radiation), and above all the nuclear interaction in the two-nucleon and many-nucleon systems. It covers all aspects of the nucleus, divided into five Parts and nineteen Chapters. Part-1 introduces nuclear binding energy, separation energy and nuclear stability. Part-2 explores the two-nucleon potential through the study of the deuteron problem, nucleon-nucleon scattering, and also presents a meson theoretical description of the nuclear potential. Part-3 deals with the nuclear structure through different models, e.g., liquid-drop model, Fermi gas model, nuclear shell model, collective model. Part-4 develops different theoretical models for nuclear reactions, e.g., compound nucleus, statistical model, continuum model, optical model, direct reaction mechanism. Part-5 covers different aspects of nuclear excitations and decays through -, -, -decay, and photo-disintegration of the n-p system. KEY FEATURES: Very lucid, detailed and coherent text. A wide variety of problems as exercises A large number of references to the classic papers in nuclear physics Present scenarios of nuclear research