PHYS 505 Nuclear Physics

Instructors: John Behr, TRIUMF Research Scientist, adjunct prof., UBC PHAS; Barry Davids, TRIUMF Senior Scientist, adjunct prof. SFU

Syllabus

Nucleons and their structure, hadrons and isospin, two-nucleon systems;
NN interaction: phenomenological this dot that vs. chiral EFT;
the pion as a Goldstone boson of chiral symmetry breaking, and how that changes its mass ;
bulk properties of nuclei, nuclear excitations and radioactivity, nuclear models;
simple nuclear structure from space+spin+isospin+permutation antisymmetry;
strong and electromagnetic decay, scattering theory and nuclear reactions, nuclear astrophysics;
symmetries and weak interactions, Goldberger-Treiman relation as a demo of approximate chiral symmetry

Prerequisites

PHYS 500 QM I or equivalent

Textbook:

Samuel S.M. Wong, Introductory Nuclear Physics, 2nd ed. Wiley (.pdf available at publisher with UBC library privileges)

(supplement for NN interactions and many-body theory) A. Obertelli and H. Sagawa, Modern Nuclear Physics..., 2021, Springer (ditto)

Lectures Jan-April 2025. (Email Behr above to express interest in Jan-April 2026)

Wed Fri 9:30-11:00

1st lecture Jan 8, 2025. Material (including notes for half the lectures) on Canvas. Email instructors for access.

Behr's lecture notes 2025:

Nucleon Structure, Hadrons, Isospin, pi as Goldstone boson

NN Interaction, chiral EFT

Isospin in Nuclei

Independent Particle Picture, Deformation, Spin-Isospin Structure, Mean Field, SRG

H-F Notes Phys98b Koonin

Dirac traces beta decay notes 2005

Weak Interactions and Nuclei

Behr's problems 2025:

HW2 nucleon, Delta0 magnetic moment, SSB

HW4 Isospin examples

HW7 s.p. picture, Nilsson, mean field, permutation structure

midterm5

HW10 Beta Decay

HW11 Helicity-driven beta decay correlations