Nuclear and Particle Physics

Syllabus

Basic nuclear properties: size, shape and charge distribution, spin and parity. Binding energy, semiempirical mass formula, liquid drop model. Nature of the nuclear force, form of nucleon-nucleon potential, charge-independence and charge-symmetry of nuclear forces. Deuteron problem. Evidence of shell structure, single-particle shell model, its validity and limitations. Rotational spectra. Elementary ideas of alpha, beta and gamma decays and their selection rules. Fission and fusion. Nuclear reactions, reaction mechanism, compound nuclei and direct reactions. 

Classification of fundamental forces. Elementary particles and their quantum numbers (charge, spin, parity, isospin, strangeness, etc.). Gellmann-Nishijima formula. Quark model, baryons and mesons. C, P, and T invariance. Application of symmetry arguments to particle reactions. Parity non-conservation in weak interaction. Relativistic kinematics.