NUCLEAR AND SUBNUCLEAR PHYSICS

Provide students, regardless of the curriculum they have chosen, with basic training in nuclear and subnuclear physics, with particular reference to the structure of hadronic matter, the electroweak interaction force and neutrino physics.

Critical understanding of current knowledge in Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics in both theoretical and phenomenological aspects and their interconnections. Considerable mastery of the scientific method and understanding of the nature and procedure of research in Physics. During the course the student will acquire the main concepts underlying the fundamental interactions between the constituents of nuclear and subnuclear systems.

Historical notes and introduction

1) The concept of cross section in atomic and nuclear processes. Rutherford experiment and the birth of the atomic nucleus concept. Coulomb interaction and its cross section. The discovery of the proton and neutron. The discovery of the positron and muon.

The structure of the hadrons: the scattering of electrons on nuclei and nucleons

2) Generalities on the interaction of charged particles with matter. Fermi second golden rule. Feynman diagrams.

3) Kinematic of electron scattering on nuclei and nucleons. Mott and Rutherford formulae. Electromagnetic properties of the nuclei. Electron scattering on nuclei and measure of their electric charge radius. Spin and magnetic momenta.

4) Elicity and its conservation. Form factors of the nucleons. Rosenbluth formula. Diffraction minima in the cross sections and form factors. Radii of the nucleons. Separation of electric and magnetic form factors. Dipolar Form Factor. Neutron electric Form Factor. Asymptotic Form Factors. Pion and kaon Form Factors.

Nucleon parton model

5) Electron inelastic scattering on nuclei. Quasi-elastic peak. Inelastic scattering on nucleons. Excited states of the nucleons. Deep Inelastic Scattering. The Bjorken scale variable x and the structure functions. Electron-quark scattering. F(x) for a quark in the nucleon. Structure functions for nucleons composed of three quarks. Callan-Gross relation. The structure functions do not depend on Q2. Interpretation of the variable x. F2 (x, Q ): valence quarks plus quark-antiquark sea. Contribution of valence quarks and sea quarks to nucleon structure functions. Coupled quarks and isolated quarks in nucleons. Separation of the sea: F₂ⁿ - F₂^p . Contribution of quarks to quad-momentum of the nucleus. Interpretation of the F₂ⁿ / F₂^p ratio. Quark distribution functions in nucleons.

Beta Decay - Neutrino Physics

6) Phenomenology of beta decay. Leptons and neutrinos. Invariances and symmetries. Non conservation of parity in beta decay. Experiment of Wu and collaborators. Cowan-Reines Experiment. Neutrinos and antineutrinos. Mass of the neutrino. Neutrino as particle of Dirac or Majorana?

7) The lepton families. The bosons W and Z. Neutrino scattering. Deep inelastic scattering of neutrinos. PMNS matrix and leptonic flavor mixing.

8) Real bosons Z and W. Electroweak Unification. Weak isospin. Weinberg angle.

9) Current issues: a) neutrino oscillations; b) double beta decay.

Other Nuclear and Subnuclear Physics topics

10) The quark families. Color interaction. Mix of flavors of the quark and Cabibbo angle.

1. B.Pohv et al: Particles and Nuclei; Bollati Boringhieri, Torino.
2. C. Giunti and C.W. Kim: Fundamentals of Neutrino Physics and Astrophysics at Oxford University Press.
3. Course notes.