Related papers: Nuclear Physics --- at the frontiers of knowledge
In the first part of the talk, I give a low-resolution overview of the current state of particle physics - the triumph of the Standard Model and its discontents. I review and re-endorse the remarkably direct and (to me) compelling argument…
Nuclear theory today aims for a comprehensive theoretical framework that can describe all nuclei. I discuss recent progress in this pursuit and the associated challenges as we move forward.
Despite its amazing quantitative successes and contributions to revolutionary technologies, physics currently faces many unsolved mysteries ranging from the meaning of quantum mechanics to the nature of the dark energy that will determine…
Defining interdisciplinary physics today requires first a reformulation of what is physics today, which in turn calls for clarifying what makes a physicist. This assessment results from my forty year journey arguing and fighting to build…
A tradition handed down among physicists maintains that classical physics is a perfectly deterministic theory capable of predicting the future with absolute certainty, independently of any interpretations. It also tells that it was quantum…
This century has seen a dramatic increase in observational possibilities of the physics of the universe. Several of the very recent new developments with emphasis on the particle physics aspect and in particular Gamma-Gamma interactions are…
Nuclear fission represents the ultimate test for microscopic theories of nuclear structure and reactions. Fission is a large-amplitude, time-dependent phenomenon taking place in a self-bound, strongly-interacting many-body system. It…
These notes are an outgrowth of an advanced undergraduate course taught at the University of Maryland, College Park. They are intended as an introduction to various aspects of particle and nuclear physics with an emphasis on the role of…
Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), an epoch of primordial nuclear transformations in the expanding Universe, has left an observable imprint in the abundances of light elements. Precision observations of such abundances, combined with…
What is physics? What are the limits of what physics can say about the world? In seeking ever-broader theoretical `umbrellas' for physical phenomena, we are seeking unifying principles. Emergent phenomena have turned out to be some of the…
The goal of nuclear structure theory is to build a comprehensive microscopic framework in which properties of nuclei and extended nuclear matter, and nuclear reactions and decays can all be consistently described. Due to novel theoretical…
These lectures aim at providing a pedagogical overview of neutrino physics. We will mostly deal with standard neutrinos, the ones that are part of the Standard Model of particle physics, and with their standard dynamics, which is enough to…
A brief outlook on low-energy nuclear physics is presented. Selected recent developments in nuclear structure theory are highlighted and a few open questions are discussed.
A nucleus is a quantum many body system made of strongly interacting Fermions, protons and neutrons (nucleons). This produces a rich Nuclear Equation of State whose knowledge is crucial to our understanding of the composition and evolution…
Some contributions of physics towards the understanding of consciousness are described. As recent relevant models, associative memory neural networks are mentioned. It is shown that consciousness and quantum physics share some properties.…
Knowledge on nuclear cluster physics has increased considerably as nuclear clustering remains one of the most fruitful domains of nuclear physics, facing some of the greatest challenges and opportunities in the years ahead. The occurrence…
In 1963-71, a group of people, myself included, formulated and perfected a new approach to physics problems, which eventually came to be known under the names of scaling, universality, and renormalization. This work formed the basis of a…
Cosmic rays have been observed up to energies $10^8$ times larger than those of the best particle accelerators. Studies of astrophysical particles (hadrons, neutrinos and photons) at their highest observed energies have implications for…
With the discovery of evidence for neutrino mass, a vivid gamma ray sky at multi-TeV energies, and cosmic ray particles with unexpectedly high energies, astroparticle physics currently runs through an era of rapid progress and moving…
Over the past five years there have been profound advances in nuclear physics based on effective field theory and the renormalization group. In this brief, we summarize these advances and discuss how they impact our understanding of nuclear…