22838 - Elements of Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics I (6 Credits)

Academic Year 2009/2010

  • Docente: Giovanni Carlo Bonsignori
  • Credits: 6
  • SSD: FIS/04
  • Language: Italian
  • Moduli: Giovanni Carlo Bonsignori (Modulo 1) Fabrizio Fabbri (Modulo 2)
  • Teaching Mode: Traditional lectures (Modulo 1) Traditional lectures (Modulo 2)
  • Campus: Bologna
  • Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in Physics (cod. 0096)

Learning outcomes

Elements of  atomic structure of matter. Radioactivity. Interactions of radiations with matter. Nuclear structure and properties: nuclear dimensions, mass and binding energies, spin, electric and magnetic moments. Nuclear fusion and fission.

Cosmic rays. Particle detectors and accelerators. Classification of the elementary particles.
Elements on fundamental interactions. Conservation laws. Elementary processes and Feynmann diagrams. Essentials of  QED. The quarks hypothesis. Essentials of QCD.

Course contents

NUCLEAR PHYSICS
Reminders of atomic structure. The lectron. Isotopes and mass spectrograph. Relativistic kinematics. The
phenomenon of radioactivity and its applications. Interactions of radiations with matter. Photoelectric, Compton
and pair-creation effects. Nuclear reactions. Rutherford scattering. Nuclear sizes. Nuclear masses and binding
energies. Nuclear spins, electric and magnetic moments. Nuclear fission. Nuclear fusion.


SUBNUCLEAR PHYSICS (Dott. Fabbri Fabrizio)
Cosmic rays. Particle detectors. General properties of particle detectors. Cloud chamber; bubble chamber; scintillation and Cherenkov counters; calorimeters. Measure of particle  position, energy and momentum. Particle identification . Detector systems.
Particle accelerators. Working principles. Electrostatic accelerators - Linear accelerators - Circular accelerators - Colliders. Accelerator systems
The elemantary particles proliferation. The positron discovery. The muon discovery. The mesons and baryons discovery. The neutrinos discovery. Mass and mean life.
Elements on fundamental interactions at high energy. Coupling constants, The four fundamental interactions, Total and partial differential cross sections. Inclusive and exclusive reactions.
New quantum numbers and conservation laws. Baryon number. Lepton number. Strangeness, charm and beauty.
Feynman diagrams. Crossing and charge coniugation. Higher order diagrams.
Qualitative elements of QED. The photon as mediator of the electromagnetic interaction between electric charges. Scattering, annihilation and creation of e+e- pairs. Moeller, Bhabha and Compton scattering. Creation and annihilation of charged fermion pairs. Leptonic universality. The QED vacuum structure. Vacuum polarization and 'running coupling constants".
General properties of the strong interaction. Excited nucleon states and decays through mesons emission. Isotopic spin multiplets. Observation of meson and baryon regularities. Super-multiplets and static quark model. Flavor SU(3) symmetry and combination rules. The quark model. Essentials of QCD.

For more information visit the course site http://www.bo.infn.it/opal/ifnsn

Readings/Bibliography

See the italian section.

Teaching methods

Lectures.

Assessment methods

Written and oral exam.

Teaching tools

Seminars and guided tours to CERN and Legnaro National Laboratory.

Links to further information

http://www.bo.infn.it/opal/ifnsn/

Office hours

See the website of Giovanni Carlo Bonsignori

See the website of Fabrizio Fabbri