Related papers: Rutherford, Radioactivity, and the Atomic Nucleus
The discovery of Electromagnetism by Oersted (1820) started an 'extraordinary decennium' ended by the discovery of electromagnetic induction by Faraday (1831). During this decennium, in several experiments, the electromagnetic induction was…
Einstein was in many ways like a detective on a mystery trail, though in his case he was on the trail of nature's mysteries and not some murder mystery! And like all good detectives he had a style. It consisted of taking facts that he knew…
In this article, I trace the early historical developments that ultimately led to the creation of the atomic bomb. Even after the completion of weapons, many scientists continued to argue that nuclear armaments were indispensable for…
I shall sketch the history of reactor neutrino physics over five decades since the Reines-Cowan proof of neutrino existence in the late 50s, till the advent of the present era of precision reactor neutrino oscillation experiments. There are…
In the year 1900 Max Planck was led by experimental observations to propose a strange formula for the intensity as a function of frequency for light emitted by a cavity. It relied on peculiar properties to be obeyed by the emitters and…
We propose to advance investigations of electromagnetic radiation originating in atomic nuclei beyond its current infancy to a true astronomy. This nuclear emission is independent from conditions of gas, thus complements more traditional…
Since the 1930s, and with very few exceptions, it has been assumed that the process of radioactive decay is a random process, unaffected by the environment in which the decaying nucleus resides. There have been instances within the past few…
The twentieth century saw two fundamental revolutions in physics -- relativity and quantum. Daily use of these theories can numb the sense of wonder at their immense empirical success. Does their instrumental effectiveness stand on the rock…
We show that nuclear motion of Rydberg atoms can be induced by resonant dipole-dipole interactions that trigger the energy transfer between two energetically close Rydberg states. How and if the atoms move depends on their initial…
David Brink was one of the leading theoretical nuclear physicists of his generation. He made major contributions to the study of all aspects of nuclear physics embracing nuclear structure, nuclear scattering, and nuclear instability. His…
In this article, halfway between popularized exposition and historical account, some key moments in the development of atomic theory in its beginnings are discussed. In particular, the events and the major discoveries that have highlighted…
In the field of chemistry, where nuclear motion has traditionally been a focal point, we now explore the ultra-rapid electronic motion spanning attoseconds to femtoseconds, demonstrating that it is equally integral and relevant to the…
Since the time of Rutherford 1911) physicists and chemists commonly believed that with no electric field, the nucleus of an atom is at the centre of the electron cloud, atoms do not have permanent electric dipole moment (EDM), so that there…
$\alpha$-clustering study since the pioneering discovery of $^{12}$C+$^{12}$C molecular resonances half a century ago. Our knowledge on physics of nuclear molecules has increased considerably and nuclear clustering remains one of the most…
We sketch the foundations of classical electrodynamics, in particular the transition that took place when Einstein, in 1915, succeeded to formulate general relativity. In 1916 Einstein demonstrated that, with a choice of suitable variables…
For well over half a century, precision studies of neutron and nuclear $\beta$ decays have been at the forefront of searches for exotic electroweak physics. Recent advances in nuclear ab initio theory and the widespread use of effective…
The theory of nuclear forces has made great progress since the turn of the millenium using the framework of chiral effective field theory (ChEFT). The advantage of this approach, which was originally proposed by Weinberg, is that it has a…
The purpose of these notes is to provide a pedagogical introduction to the concept of renormalization in atomic physics. We study quantum dynamics of a model of a nonrelativistic single electron atom coupled to the quantum radiation field…
The nucleus is one of the most multi-faceted many-body systems in the universe. It exhibits a multitude of responses depending on the way one 'probes' it. With increasing technical advancements of beams at the various accelerators and of…
A simple model of an atom interacting with the quantized electromagnetic field is studied. The atom has a finite mass $m$, finitely many excited states and an electric dipole moment, $\vec{d}_0 = -\lambda_{0} \vec{d}$, where $\| d^{i}\| =…