2025 (Current Year) Faculty Courses School of Science Department of Physics Graduate major in Physics
Advanced Nuclear Physics II
- Academic unit or major
- Graduate major in Physics
- Instructor(s)
- Kazuyuki Sekizawa
- Class Format
- Lecture (Face-to-face)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Fri
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- PHY.F441
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2025
- Offered quarter
- 2Q
- Syllabus updated
- Mar 31, 2025
- Language
- English
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
In the lectures, basics and applications of modern nuclear physics will be given. Among a variety of phenomena in nuclear physics, selected important topics will be addressed. Atomic nuclei can be regarded as strongly-correlated, self-bound, quantum many-body systems. By studying the physics of atomic nuclei, students will learn both basics and applications of quantum many-body approaches as well as cutting-edge topics in modern nuclear physics today.
Course description and aims
To understand the basics of quantum many-body theories to describe many-nucleon systems. To learn various phenomena from collective excitations and reactions of finite nuclei to neutron stars and to gain a new perspective of own future research.
Keywords
Atomic nuclei, strong interaction, self-bound systems, quantum many-body systems, nuclear structure, nuclear reaction, experiments using accelerators, rare isotopes, nucleo-synthesis, hypernuclei, strangeness
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
The lectures cover nuclear physics with Fermionic particle, nucleons (protons and neutrons). In particular, microscopic approaches for nuclear many-body problems and their applications are addressed. Slides are primarily used in the class with some handouts.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Overview of nuclear physics | Understand the richness of nuclear many-body problems |
| Class 2 | Mean-field approaches: Hartree-Fock and density functional theories | Understand basics of microscopic mean-field approaches for nuclear many-body problems |
| Class 3 | Nuclear pairing: Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer and Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theories | Understand how pairing correlations are described within mean-field approaches |
| Class 4 | Nuclear collective excitations: Random phase approximation | Understand how to describe nuclear collective excitations within random phase approximation |
| Class 5 | Nuclear reactions: Time-dependent mean-field approaches | Understand how various nuclear reactions are described within time-dependent mean-field approaches |
| Class 6 | Equation of state and neutron stars | Understand the relation between an equation of state and neutron star structure and various phases of dense nuclear matter |
| Class 7 | Quantized vortices and pulsar glitch phenomenon | Understand the nature of quantized vortices (flux tubes) in superfluid (superconductor) and its relation to pulsar glitch phenomenon |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
Not specified.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Standard textbooks that may be useful are:
1. Walter Greiner and Joachim A. Maruhn, Nuclear Models (Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 1996),
2. Peter Ring and Peter Schuck, The Nuclear Many-Body Problem (Springer-Verlag New York 1980).
Presentation slides and notes will be given during the classes.
Evaluation methods and criteria
To be evaluated based on some report(s) dealing with problems indicated in the class.
Related courses
- PHY.F430 ： Hadron Physics
- PHY.F436 ： Advanced Particle Physics
- PHY.F350 ： Nuclear Physics
- PHY.F351 ： Elementary Particles
- PHY.Q438 ： Quantum Mechanics of Many-Body Systems
- PHY.Q208 ： Quantum Mechanics II
- PHY.Q311 ： Quantum Mechanics III
- PHY.Q331 ： Relativistic Quantum Mechanics
- PHY.F440 ： Advance Nuclear Physics I
Prerequisites
Basic under-graduate quantum physics course is a prerequisite.