This book introduces nuclear data to the newcomer and provides a basic introduction to the role of nuclear data as the foundation of nuclear structure study. The material presented assumes no prior knowledge of the content or language used in communicating details of nuclear data. The approach builds on basic concepts: from gross properties of nuclei, through properties of quantum excited states, to simple model perspectives.
The role of spectroscopy is thoroughly integrated, across all types of measurements, with many illustrations, to show how properties of nuclei are deduced. The basic technical methods needed for the deduction of nuclear properties from raw data are presented in animated figures, video tutorials, and accompanying PowerPoint® presentations. The level of presentation provides access for students and researchers in applied areas that use nuclear data, e.g., medical applications and nuclear security. Overall, the book focuses on pedagogy and accessibility to the data aspect of nuclear physics.
Key Features
Written by leaders in the fieldProvides an introduction to a topic of high interest to the nuclear physics communityBrings organization to the complexity of nuclear dataContains embedded video exercises exploring nuclear data manipulation
Table of Contents:
Preface
1 Gross properties of nuclei
2 Nuclear Excitation Patterns
3 Nuclear deformation and rotations
4 Towards a global view of nuclear structure
5 Simple models of nuclear structure
6 Nuclear spectroscopic measurements
7 Metrology for nuclear structure study
8 Epilogue
About the Author :
Professor David Jenkins is Head of the Nuclear Physics Group at the University of York, UK. He is also a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Study, University of Strasbourg (USIAS) and an Extraordinary Professor of the University of Western Cape in South Africa. His research in experimental nuclear physics focusses on several topics such as nuclear astrophysics, clustering in nuclei and the study of proton-rich nuclei. In recent years, he has developed a strong strand of applications-related research with extensive industrial collaboration. He has led the development of bespoke radiation detectors for homeland security, nuclear decommissioning, borehole logging and medical applications.
John Wood is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Physics at Georgia Institute of Technology. He continues to collaborate on research projects in both experimental and theoretical nuclear physics. Special research interests include nuclear shapes and systematics of nuclear structure.
Review :
As the present book is a primer, it is made to not require specific previous knowledge of the subject. As such, it is mainly targeted towards newcomers to the field. The text is fully referenced to scientific publications, both journal articles and books, and occasionally suggests further reading. It gives end-of-chapter problems and features links to video exercises which are available on the IOP website. Altogether, there is 370 MB of supplemental material, including slides, figures and videos. Overall, the book gives a nice overview of the quantities used to describe atomic nuclei and partially shows how they are commonly obtained. It can be recommended as an introduction to nuclear data, not as a replacement for a nuclear physics textbook, but as a primer to the quantitative description itself and how to navigate and understand the existing nuclear data.
Manuel Vogel, Contemporary Physics, June 2022
