Al-Abbas Notes Nuclear Physics &Particle Physics

Nuclear Physics
The branch of Physics which deals with
the properties of nucleus,
structure of nucleus,
theoretical and experimental techniques for the decay of nucleus
and emission of radiations from the nucleus is called Nuclear Physics.

Properties of Nucleus
There are two properties of nucleus
1. Static properties: The properties of nucleus corresponding to the ground state are
called static properties e.g. nuclear mass, charge, size binding energy, magnetic
dipole moment, electric quadrupole moment, angular moment etc.
2. Dynamic properties: The properties corresponding to excited state of nuclei decay of
nucleus and nuclear radiations are called dynamic properties.

Nucleus was discovered by Rutherford in 1911 during alpha scattering experiment

Electron
 JJ Thomson discovered electron in1897
 It is negatively charged
 Its mass is 9.1*10-31 Kg
 Its spin is half
 It is fermion

Proton
 Gold stein discovered proton in 1928
 It is present in the nucleus
 It is the main mass of nucleus due to protons
 Its mass is 1.673*10-27 Kg
 It is 1836 times heavier then electron
 It has positive parity
 Its spin is half
 It is fermions
 When alpha particles are bombarded on nitrogen, the nuclear reaction is as get
proton

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 Neutron
 Neutron was discovered by James Chadwick in 1932
 When alpha particle is bombarded on berelium we get neutron
 It is neutral particle
 Its mass 1.675*10-27 Kg
 It is 1842 times heavier than the electrons
 It has positive parity
 It has ½ spin
 It is fermion

Atomic number
The number of protons present in nucleus. The number of electrons revolving
around nucleus is called atomic number denoted by Z.

Mass number
Total number of protons and neutrons present in the nucleus is called mass number and
denoted by A.

Isotopes
The nuclei having same atomic number but different mass numbers are called isotopes`..
Types of Isotopes

Stable isotopes
Such isotopes which donot decay with the passage of time are called stable isotopes

Unstable isotopes
Such isotopes which decay with the passage of time are called unstable isotopes
Hydrogen element has two stable isotopes and one unstable isotope.

Relative abundance
If an element has two or more than two isotopes, then their percentage in sample is called
relative abundance. For example Li-6 is 7.6% and Li-7 is 92.4%.

Isobars
The nuclei having same mass number but different atomic numbers are called isobars

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 Isotones
The nuclei having same number of neutrons are called isotones.

Isodiphers
The nuclei having same difference between the number of protons and neutrons is called
isodiphers

Isomers
The nuclei having same atomic number and mass number but existing in different energy
states are called isomers

Nucleides
The nuclei which can be completely described by their atomic number, mass number and
energy states are called nucleides

Nuclear spin or nuclear angular momentum

 Total angular momentum of nucleus is called nuclear spin
 It is intrinsic property of nucleus that have nuclear spin is half of h cut
 In anti clock wise it is positive and clock wise it is negative

Nuclear magnetic dipole moment

 The product of magnetic pole strength and the distance from pole is called magnetic
dipole moment
 The sum of orbital magnetic dipole moment and spin magnetic dipole moment is
called total magnetic dipole moment.

g-factor
 it is dimensionless magnetic dipole moment
 it is physical constant
 it is constant for each particle but vary from one particle to another for 1
electrons
 gs for electron 2.002319, gl is 1.0011595

Bohr Magneton
UB=(h/2pi)(e/2Mp) is called Bohr magneton… nuclear magneton is 1/1836 times the Bohr
magneton

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 Electric quadruple moment
 it measures the deviation of nucleus from its spherical symmetry
 it gives the shape of nucleus
 it is represented by Q
 Q has dimension of Area
 If Q=0 then nucleus has completely spheroid
 If Q>0 or positive this distribution is called prolate
 If Q<0 this distribution is called oblate and charge will along axis opposite to z axis
 In nuclear physics area is measured in Born.
 1 Born=10-24 cm2.
 Formula for electric quadrupole Q=∫ ƍdv

Nuclear size
 size means volume of nucleus
 inside the nucleus the nucleons are held together by short range nuclear force called
strong nuclear force
 it is charge independent and always attractive force
 the volume of nucleus depends upon the number of nucleons A atomic mass number
 Ro=1.24*10-15 m Ro=1.4*10-15 m
 There are two methods for measurement of Ro
 Nuclear method: in this method we consider strong nuclear force while calculating
Ro which is 1.4*10-15 m
 Electric method: in this method we consider only nuclear charges Ro=1.24*10-15 m.
 The difference by these two methods is due to difference in the distribution of
nuclear matter and nuclear charge

Wave function

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  Wave function of a system provides complete information about the system.
 It is denoted by .
 Every stem has its own wave function
 Symmetric wave function: the wave function does not change its sign under such
exchange then it is called symmetric wave function
 Anti symmetric wave function: if wave function changes its sign under exchange
then it is called anti symmetric wave function
 For symmetric wave function Bose Einstein statistics is applied
 For anti symmetric wave function Fermi dirac statistics is applied

Particles types
 On the basis of statistics all particles divided into two groups
I. Bosons
II. Fermions
 Elementary particles: The particles which do not have specific rule to further
subdivided are called elementary particles

Bosons
 Example of Bosons are photon, alpha particles, helium nucleus
 They obey Bose Einstein Statistics
 They do not obey Pauli Exclusion principle
 It means more than two bosons can exist in same state or can occupy same quantum
number
 They have symmetric wave function

Fermions
 Examples of fermions are protons, neutrons and electrons
 They obey Fermi dirac statistics
 They obey Pauli exclusion principle
 They have anti symmetric wave function

Nuclear parity

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  Nuclear parity is the property of wave function of quantum mechanical system
 It is of great importance in atomic and nuclear physics
 It explains the behavior of wave function under mirror reflection.
 By mirror reflection we mean the behavior of wave function during the reflection of
co-ordinates through the origin by interchanging the co-ordinate with (-x,-y,-z)
 Odd parity: If such inversion the wave function changes its sign then it is said to have
odd parity.
 Even parity: If such inversion the wave function does not changes its sign then it is to
have even parity.

Isolated system
 Such a system in which energy is neither entered or nor extracted from system is
called isolated system.
 For isolated system parity remains conserved throughout irrespective to changes
occurring inside the system.

Law of conservation of parity

The system with even parity will retain even parity throughout the time and a system with
odd parity will retain odd parity throughout the time.

Packing fraction
 The ratio of mass defect to atomic mass is called packing fraction
 Mass defect per nucleon is called packing fraction
 f= (M-A)/A
 light elements have high packing fraction
 The elements with atomic mass 16<A<160 have negative packing fraction
 The elements with negative packing fraction are more stable
 It is fundamental property of nucleus which explains the mass energy conversion
during nucleus formation.
 All elements have positive fraction till 16 atomic numbers and very fastly after 160. It
starts again positive.

Atomic mass unit

1/12 of mass of the C-12 atom is called atomic mass unit.

Displacement law
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  This law was taken by F soddy and Fojan in 1913
 According to which during alpha decay the mass number atom decrease by four and
atomic number by 2 which results the displacement of the atom by two steps
towards left in periodic table
 Similarly in beta emission the mass number remains same but atomic number
increase by 1 which results or shift of one step to the right in periodic table

Activity
 The number of disintegration per unit time is called activity
 It is denoted by A
 It depends upon the number of radioactive nuclei present in sample

Half life time T

The time during half of the present nuclei disintegrate into daughter nuclei is called half life

Mean life time

The ratio of total disintegration time events and total number of initial nuclei is called mean
life time.

Binding energy
The minimum amount of energy required to break a nucleus into Z protons and N neutrons
such that all the nucleons are completely independent of each other is called binding
energy

Properties of binding energy per nucleon

1. Binding energy is positive for all nuclei
2. The nuclear forces between nucleons are attractive. It becomes repulsive when
nucleus proton close to each other.
3. Sudden sharp peaks occur at small values of A which are multiple of 4 or A/2
4. It means elements are more stable which atomic mass lies in less than 30
5. For nuclei A>20 there is small variations in Binding energy per nucleon and it lies
between 7.5 MeV and 8.5 MeV
6. The curve shows that elements with A=60, The Binding energy per nucleon decrease
which shows that these elements are less stable

Liquid drop model

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 The nucleus is like a droplet of an incompressible matter liquid and nuclei have same
density
 The strong nuclear forces between nucleons are charge independent
 The nuclear forces have short range character and interact with nearest neighboring.

Similarities between nucleus and liquid drop model

1. Both have constant density which is independent of size
2. Evaporation of liquid drop corresponds to radioactive properties of nucleus
3. Latent heat of evaporation corresponds to binding energy per nucleon of nucleus

Condensation
 The process of conversion of gas back into droplet of water is called
condensation
 Condensation of liquid drop corresponds to the formation of compound
nucleus
 Both liquid drop and nucleus show surface tension

Semi emerical binding energy formula

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 1. Volume energy: As volume increase, energy increase due to mass energy
conversion,, the volume term is used in this formula due to mass energy conversion
2. Columb energy: It is included in the formula and it is a measure of reduction of
binding energy due to electrostatic repulsion between protons inside the nucleus
3. Surface energy: It is equailent to surface tension in the liquid drop. The nucleons
which are deep in the nuclear volume have more neighbors then the nucleons which
are at the surface so, they have differ of binding energy which is proportional to
surface area
4. Symmetric energy: As the charge distribution is merely responsible for nucleus
stability so, the symmetry term is added due to the effect that stability of nuclei
depends protons, neutrons distribution in nucleus.
5. Pairing energy: The nuclei with even number of protons and neutrons are more
stable then nuclei with odd number of protons and neutrons are less stable or odd
number of neutrons are partially stable nuclei
6. Even or odd combination of protons and neutrons are partially stable and even-even
combination odd-odd combination
7. Sum of all the above energies is equal to formula called Semi empirical binding
energy formula.

Advantages of liquid drop model

There are following advantages of liquid drop model
1. It is basic of the compound nucleus concept
2. It explains disintegration phenomenon
3. It develop semi-emerical mass and binding energy formula
4. It explain nuclear fission process
5. It explain nuclear fusion process
Disadvantages
It has a big disadvantages that it does not explain the excited state of nucleus/nuclei

Nuclear shell model

 It is observed that many nuclear properties vary periodically in the sense similar to
extra nuclear electrons in an atom
 The experimental result show that more stable nuclei result when the number of
protons or neutrons is equal to one of the number 2,8,20,50,82,126. These number
are called magic numbers
 Number of protons and neutrons among these is magic number it corresponds to
shell which are discrete shell
 Path of single electron is orbit and orbit in which more than one electron are moving
is called shell
 Magic number can be explained as the close shell of protons or neutrons like filling of
electron in the extra
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 Evidence which support the magic number
There are following evidences which support the magic number
1. The nuclei for which atomic number and neutron number are equal to 2 or 8 are He-4
and oxygen 16 which are more stable than their neighbor
2. The Binding energy per nucleon curve as function of mass number show sudden
increase in binding energy per nucleon
3. Relative abundance of elements also corresponds to stability and conforms the
existence of magic number
4. The lightest element with more than two stable isotopes is oxygen Z=8
5. The lightest element with four stable isotopes is sulphur S-36
6. The first element with five stable isotopes is calcium Ca-20
7. The stable isotopes occur only one’s in tin with 50 protons
8. Lead Pb with Z=82 shows stable nature in radioactive series due to super magic
number

Analogy b/w electron and nucleon

There is direct analogy between theoretical treatment of nucleons inside the nucleus
and electron
1. The potential energy of the nucleon is analogy to colomb energy of electron
2. The orbits or quantum state of nucleons are in analogy to the orbit or energy
states of electron
3. The closed shell of nucleons are found in analogy to closed shell of electron

Advantages of nuclear shell model

1. The total angular momentum of the nuclei predicted by shell model is in a good
element with experimental value
2. It also explain electric quadrupole moment
3. It also explain the super heavy element with double magic number

Drawbacks of shell model

1. It does not explain the constant density of nucleus
2. It does not explain the neutrons excess in heavy nuclei
3. It does not explain nuclear fission process
4. It does not explain radioactivity and radioactive decay of alpha and beta particles for
heavy nuclei

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 Comparison between LDM and Shell model
1. The liquid drop model gives the collective behavior of nucleus according to which the
nucleus is an incompressible droplet of liquid
2. The shell model give the independent behavior of nuclei according to the which the
nucleons are independent to each other
3. Some of the phenomenon nuclear reactions fission process and fusion process can
only explain with liquid drop model
4. Some of the phenomenon like magic number, electric quadrupole moment and
magnetic moment etc can only be explain with nuclear shell model

Radioactivity
The process by which disintegration or transformation of present nuclei into daughter
nuclei along the emission of particles or electromagnetic radiations take place is called
radioactive decay

1. Alpha decay: It is observed that an alpha particle disintegration process, the

emitted alpha particle could have energy in the range of the order of 5MeV to
10 MeV
Alpha Decay ()
Alpha decay is the emission of alpha particles (helium nuclei) which may be
represented as either
4 4 2 2 He or . When an unstable nucleus ejects an alpha particle, the atomic number is
reduced by 2
and the mass number decreased by 4. An example is uranium-234 which decays by
the ejection
of an alpha particle accompanied by the emission of a 0.068 MeV gamma
2. Beta decay: have three forms: i. emission of electron from nucleus ii. Emission
of positron from nucleus. Iii. Electron capture by the atomic nuclei.

Neutrino
1. It is observed that law of conservation of energy and momentum does hold in beta
decay so in 1930, pauli assume that an uncharged particle with zero or very small rest
mass and half spin is also emitted from nucleus along with electron named as
neutrino
2. Every neutrino has anti neutrino after the consideration of neutrino it is observed
that it has conservation of momentum and energy holds very well during beta decay

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 Properties of neutrino
1. Its rest mass is zero or negligible
2. It has spin half
3. It is fermions
4. It has negligible magnetic moment due to neutral
5. It has energy and momentum
6. A neutrino also has anti neutrino.
Fundamental forces
1. Interaction: The effect of one object or particle on another is called interaction
2. The interaction are forces explain the general features of known physical process
it has four types
1. Strong interactions/ strong nuclear force
2. Weak interaction/ weak nuclear force
3. Gravitation force
4. Electromagnetic force or colomb force

Strong force
1. It binds the nucleons inside the nucleus
2. It is charge independent
3. It is always attractive
4. Relative strength is 1 which standard.
5. Short range force 0.5 Fermi- 2 fermi
6. If the separation of nucleons is large then 2 fermi.
7. If the separation is less than 0.5 fermi there exist a repulsive force than strong
nuclear force

The exchange particles between nucleons are pi meson

8. They have negative parity
9. Pi meson are made from quarks
10.Pi plus, pi negative and pi neutral.
11.Their spin is zero

Weak interaction/ weak nuclear force

1. It is not normally used weak nuclear force cause beta decay from neutrons.
2. When protons-neutrons ratio is not suitable for the formation of stable nucleus
3. It is 1013 times from strong nuclear force
4.
Its relative strength is 10-13
5. Exchange particles are leptons, leptons is a type of quark electron. They are fermion,
they have negative half ½ spin

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 Gravitational force
The force of attraction between two masses is called gravitational force
1. It is long range force
2. It is an inverse square law force
3. Its relative strength is 10-38
4. The exchange particle are gravitons
5. Gravitons are elementary particles, which is hypothetical anti particles of itself which
is boson.
Electromagnetic force
The force of attraction or repulsion between two charge bodies is called electromagnetic
induction
1. It is long range force
2. It has relative strength is 10-2
3. Exchange particle are virtual photon.

Saturation
 It is the only force which saturates in this universe.
 A nucleon attracts only nearest neighbors when nuclear force due to any nucleon
reacts to saturation level have 2 fermi

Spin dependent
Strong nuclear force is spin dependent. It means it is maximum when the spin will be in the
same direction and minimum when spin is in opposite direction

Yukawa Theory or Meson Theory/ Theory of nuclear forces

 In order to explain the origin of strong nuclear forces between nucleons inside the
nucleus.
 In 1935 Yukawa proposed the meson theory, according to which each nucleon consist
of an identical core surrounding by 1 or 2 meson
 Meson may carry positive charge, negative charge or neutral
 Meson types pion plus, pion negative, pion neutral collectively known as pions
 The strong nuclear force b/w p-p, n-n is due to exchange of neutral meson pi plus or
pi neutral
 The strong nuclear force b/w p-n is due to exchange of pi plus and pi negative meson
 It is observed theoretically that in each of these reactions, the energy does not
remains constant during small interval of time
 Pion mass is 273 times of mass of electron
 Mpi=273me

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 Resonance reaction
 In many nuclear reactions, it is found that with gradual increase in energy of
incident particles the yield of outgoing particles does not increase uniformly
 But show sharp maxima at certain discrete values of energies. This occurrence
of sharp maxima in the reaction rate is called resonance
 The discrete values of energies at which maxima occurs are called resonance
energies
 Proton neutron, alpha neutron, proton gamma reactions have resonance

Direct reactions
 The reaction in which the passage from initial state to final state is direct and the
formation of compound nucleus is not involved are called direct reactions
 In direct reaction the time of interaction is about 10-21 sec
 In compound nucleus formation reaction, the time of interaction is of the order of
10-16 sec
 Inelastic scattering and knock out reaction, stripping and pick up reactions are the
examples of direct reactions
 Knock reaction: The reactions in which the projectile knock out a particle and itself
gets absorbed by the nucleus are called knock out reactions
The quantities which are not conserved the nuclear reactions
1. Magnetic dipole moment
2. Electric quadruple moment

Q value of nuclear reaction

1. The Q value of a nuclear reaction is defined as the amount of energy released or
absorbed in a nuclear reaction
2. The reaction with positive value of Q is called exothermic or exoergic reaction
3. In these types of reactions, the energy is released by the reaction
4. The nuclear reaction with negative Q value is called endo thermic or endoergic
reaction

Threshold energy
 It is defined as the minimum amount of energy required by an incident particle to
start an endoergic or endothermic reaction
 In an endoergic reaction the negative Q energy is required to excite the compound
nucleus so that it could disintegrate into product and outgoing particles

Transmutation
The process in one atomic nucleus is transformed into another nucleus

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 Accelerator
A device which can be used to accelerate the charged particles is called accelerator
Principle of Accelerator
The principle object of an accelerator is to increase the kinetic energy of charged particles
so that these particles may be used as powerful missiles or projectiles to initiate the
artificial transmutation reactions

Types of accelerator
 Static accelerator
 Cyclic accelerator
 Linear accelerator

Electrostatic accelerator
 In this type of accelerator the charged particles are accelerated along a straight path
through the vacuum tube by applying a constant voltage difference between the ion
source and the target
 This type of accelerator can accelerate the electrons, protons, deuterons and alpha
particles upto 12 MeV
 Examples of Cockroft Walton accelerator, Tandum accelerator,Van de graff
Accelerator

Cyclic Accelerator
 This type of accelerator use the electric and magnetic field to accelerate the particles
in multiple steps such that they contribute a small amount of energy to the
accelerating particles during each step
 In this type of accelerator the trajectory of the particles is circular
 Examples of Lawrence cyclotron , fixed frequency cyclotron, betatron, omnitron

Linear Accelerator

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Principle: This type of accelerator use the phenomenon of resonance between the moving
particle and the applied field
 They can accelerate the protons up to 50 MeV and electron up to 40 GeV.
 These accelerators had been designed to accelerate protons, deuterons and
electrons
 The trajectory of charged particles is a straight path
 In this accelerator the energy of the charged particles is increased by applying an
oscillating electric field to a series of cylindrical drift tube to which applied field
frequency is in resonance with motion of particles

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