Nuclear Physics in a Nutshell:Graduate Lectures on Physics
Publisher: Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Yangon, Myanmar
Language: eng
Format: Monograph:Paper
Number of pages: 176
Description: This monograph is based on lectures given to graduate students between 1993 and 2006 at Rangoon (Yangon) University. It covers some basic topics under the headings :Chapter I Properties of the nuclei;Chapter II Accelerators and detectors; Chapter III Nuclear reactors; Chapter IV Nuclear theory; Chapter V Elementary particle physics. Some of the topics dealt with in Chapter II are Artificial radioactivity,The nuclear reactor,The diffusion equation, The critical equation , Neutron balance in a thermal reactor,Enrichment. Some of the topics under Chapter V are Broken symmetries in weak interaction and long range forces, SU(3) symmetry and applications, Leptons, Gauge bosons,Isospin and strangeness, Supersymmetry and the Dirac equation,  Strings and membranes, Harmonic condition and gravitational polarization. 
A brief mention is also made of  Dirac's work related to enrichment and isotope separation and his insights on broken symmetries. 
Dirac invented an isotope jet separation method in the 1940's. He proposed two techniques (a) the curved path slit system and (b) the hole plate system in both of which  the gas enriched in the light isotope got pumped away from a certain region and got collected in another region. His first proposal was to turn the jet by a smooth curved 90-degree angle dividing the final stream into two jets. The second proposal consisted of two parallel plates with circular  coaxial apertures of different diameters the entrance aperture having a smaller diameter than the exist aperture : The gas enriched in the light isotope being guided through the exit aperture. Dirac had foreseen the possibility that parity symmetry might be broken in his paper  honouring Einstein's special relativity : "Forms of relativistic dynamics" ( 1949 Rev Mod Phys vol 21,392) in which he states that "I do not believe there is any need for physical laws to be invariant under reflections in space and time although the exact physical laws of nature so far known (gravity and electromagnetism) do have this invariance". In a paper bearing the title  " Long range forces and broken symmetries " (1973 Proc Roy Soc vol 333,403)"  he discusses an important feature of Weyl's geometry that leads to  a breaking of the C (charge conjugation) and T (time reversal) symmetries with no breaking of P (parity change) or CT. The breaking of C and T symmetries is a rare event  and has been observed for the K-meson. The breaking of C and of T , with the preservation of CT, is caused by long range forces if handled in accordance with Weyl's geometry. The breaking of P must be ascribed to short range forces. The violation of parity symmetry foreseen by Dirac in 1949 and independently suggested by Yang and Lee in 1957 was confirmed by experiments of Lederman and Wu in 1957. 
Supersymmetry was discovered in 1971 by  J  L  Gervais and B  Sakita and independently by Yu  A  Golfand and E P  Likhtman . Based on his 1969 lectures Dirac in his book published in 1974 "Spinors in Hilbert space " ( London: Plenum) considers a physical theory involving fermions each having an infinite number of independent states. Starting with creation operators for fermions and defining a rotation operator R such that |z*>=R|z> (z is an orthonormal ket matrix) he shows that R  is an exponential function of   boson variables. Thus Dirac discusses  in his lectures that one can have boson variables appearing automatically in a theory which starts with only fermion variables two years before the official discovery of supersymmetry.
Table of contents: label: Preface
pagenum: i-iv; label: Chapter   I  Properties of the nuclei; label: 1.1 Introduction
pagenum: 1; label: 1.2 Radioactivity
pagenum: 2; label: 1.3 Atomic mass unit, u
pagenum: 3; label: 1.4 Packing fraction and binding energy
pagenum: 4; label: 1.5 Average binding energy per nucleon
pagenum: 4; label: 1.6 Volume binding energy
pagenum: 6; label: 1.7 Surface energy
pagenum: 7; label: 1.8 Coulomb energy
pagenum: 7; label: 1.9 Symmetry energy
pagenum: 8; label: 1.10 Semiemperical mass formula
pagenum: 9; label: 1.11 Alpha emission
pagenum: 14; label: 1.12 Periodic shell structure
pagenum: 15; label: 1.13 Spin and magnetic moment
pagenum: 15; label: 1.14 Hyperfine structure of optical spectra
pagenum: 15; label: 1.15 Atomic and molecular beams
pagenum: 17; label: 1.16 Magnetic resonance (nuclear induction)
pagenum: 17; label: 1.17 Electric quadrupole moment
pagenum: 18; label: Chapter  II Accelerators and detectors; label: 2.0 Prologue
pagenum: 22; label: 2.1 Introduction
pagenum: 22; label: 2.2 Cockcroft-Walton accelerator
pagenum: 22; label: 2.3 The neutron experiments of Chadwick, Bothe and Becker and Curie and Juliot
pagenum: 27; label: 2.4 Positron emission tomography and antimatter
pagenum: 30; label: 2.5 The Rossi coincidence circuit
pagenum: 31; label: 2.6 The cyclotron
pagenum: 32; label: 2.7 Magnetic focusing of particle orbits
pagenum: 33; label: 2.8 The betatron
pagenum: 34; label: 2.9 The linear accelerator
pagenum: 36; label: 2.10 The linac
pagenum: 37; label: 2.11 Synchrtron
pagenum: 38; label: 2.11.1 Large hadron collider
pagenum: 39; label: 2.12 Passage of electromagnetic radiation through matter
pagenum: 41; label: 2.12.1 Photoelecric absorption
pagenum: 42; label: 2.12.2 Compton scattering
pagenum: 44; label: 2.12.3 Pair formation
pagenum: 47; label: 2.12.3.1 Cosmic ray showers
pagenum: 49; label: 2.12.4 Bremstrahlung:Radiation loss by fast electrons
pagenum: 51; label: 2.12.5 Ionization of a gas
pagenum: 55; label: 2.12.6 Epilogue
pagenum: 56; label: Chapter III Nuclear reactors; label: 3.0 Prologue
pagenum: 57; label: 3.1 Artificial radioactivity
pagenum: 57; label: 3.2 The nuclear reactor
pagenum: 58; label: 3.3 The diffusion equation
pagenum: 61; label: 3.4 The critical equation
pagenum: 63; label: 3.5 Neutron balance in a thermal reactor
pagenum: 69; label: 3.6 Enrichment:Separation of isotopes
pagenum: 72; label: (i) The electromagnetic method
pagenum: 73; label: (ii) The gaseous diffusion method
pagenum: 74; label: (iii) The thermal diffusion method
pagenum: 74; label: (iv) The centrifugal method
pagenum: 74; label: (v) The electrolytic method
pagenum: 75; label: (vi) The distillation method
pagenum: 76; label: (vii) The chemical exchange method
pagenum: 76; label: 3.6.1 Uses of nuclear reactors
pagenum: 76; label: 3.7 Fission product poisoning
pagenum: 77; label: 3.8 Prologue: Nuclear forsenics and nuclear database
pagenum: 79; label: 3.9 Fermi's papers; label: (a) Artificial radioactivity produced by neutron bombardment
pagenum: 81; label: (b) The development of the first chain reacting pile
pagenum: 89; label: Chapter  IV Nuclear theory; label: 4.0 Epilogue
pagenum: 98; label: 4.1 Time dependent perturbation theory: Fermi's golden rule
pagenum: 98; label: 4.2 Beta decay and Fermi's golden rule
pagenum: 100; label: 4.3 Quantum theory of scattering
pagenum: 102; label: 4.4 Nuclear cross-section calculations
pagenum: 106; label: 4.5 Breit-Wigner resonance formula
pagenum: 111; label: 4.6 The quark model and the s-state energy levels of charmonium
pagenum: 115; label: 4.7 The Clebsch-Gordon(Wigner) coefficients and the magnetic moment of nucleons
pagenum: 120; label: 4.8 Epilogue
pagenum: 128; label: Chapter  V  Elementary particle physics; label: 5.0 Prologue
pagenum: 129; label: 5.1 Broken symmetries in weak interactions and long range forces
pagenum: 129; label: 5.2 General idea of SU(3)
pagenum: 131; label: 5.2.1 Introduction to O(3),U(2) and SU(2)
pagenum: 131; label: 5.2.2 SU(3) symmetry
pagenum: 135; label: 5.3 Physical application
pagenum: 138; label: 5.3.1 Leptons
pagenum: 139; label: 5.3.2 Gauge bosons
pagenum: 139; label: 5.3.3 Isospin and strangeness
pagenum: 141; label: 5.4 Abstract Lie algebra of SU(3)
pagenum: 141; label: 5.5 Strings and membranes
pagenum: 146; label: 5.6 Supersymmetry and the Dirac equation
pagenum: 152; label: 5.7 N=8 supergravity (Bern Z et al 2009 PRL 103, 081301)
pagenum: 157; label: 5.8 Spinor analysis
pagenum: 159; label: 5.8.1 Boson variables
pagenum: 162; label: 5.8.2 Fermion variables
pagenum: 163; label: 5.9 Harmonic condition and gravitational polarization
pagenum: 166; label: 5.10 Epilogue
pagenum: 170; label: 5.11 Appendix:The graviton as an elementary particle of spin 2
pagenum: 171; label: References
pagenum: 172; label: Index
pagenum: 174