Descriptif

The quest for finding the ultimate constituents of matter has revealed that matter has a nested structure quarks at scales that differ by many orders of magnitudes: atoms contain electrons and nuclei; nuclei a made up of nucleons, which in turn are composed of. Nowadays, particle physicists are more concerned with the fundamental laws that govern the interactions of elementary particles. The most emblematic question is “how do particles acquire mass”; and the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 is an important clue that we are on the right path to answering this question.

This course will give a pedestrian introduction to nuclear and particle physics, illustrating in a balanced fashion theoretical underpinnings, experimental activities and technological aspects of subatomic physics. The basis for this course will be the PHY205 and PHY301 (introductory and advanced quantum physics) as well as PHY204 (theoretical electrodynamics).

The following subjects are expected to be treated:

• the big picture of the structure of matter and the great discoveries
• nuclear binding energy; nuclear models (droplet model; fermi-gas model); isotopic spin
• particle accelerators and colliders
• decay of elementary and subatomic particles decay
• scattering experiments: nucleus, nucleons, quarks
• the nonrelativistic quark-model and the magnetic moment of the nucleons
• neutrino oscillations