Overview
- Presents advances across a broad range of topics in modern nuclear physics
- Details recent progress in the study and generation of superheavy and exotic nuclei
- Identifies methodology, analytical and numerical tools that could be used jointly in highly interdisciplinary fields
- Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras
Part of the book series: FIAS Interdisciplinary Science Series (FIAS)
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About this book
This volume presents the state-of-the-art in selected topics across modern nuclear physics, covering fields of central importance to research and illustrating their connection to many different areas of physics.
It describes recent progress in the study of superheavy and exotic nuclei, which is pushing our knowledge to ever heavier elements and neutron-richer isotopes. Extending nuclear physics to systems that are many times denser than even the core of an atomic nucleus, one enters the realm of the physics of neutron stars and possibly quark stars, a topic that is intensively investigated with many ground-based and outer-space research missions as well as numerous theoretical works. By colliding two nuclei at very high ultra-relativistic energies one can create a fireball of extremely hot matter, reminiscent of the universe very shortly after the big bang, leading to a phase of melted hadrons and free quarks and gluons, the so-called quark-gluon plasma.
These studiestie up with effects of crucial importance in other fields. During the collision of heavy ions, electric fields of extreme strength are produced, potentially destabilizing the vacuum of the atomic physics system, subsequently leading to the decay of the vacuum state and the emission of positrons. In neutron stars the ultra-dense matter might support extremely high magnetic fields, far beyond anything that can be produced in the laboratory, significantly affecting the stellar properties.
At very high densities general relativity predicts the stellar collapse to a black hole. However, a number of current theoretical activities, modifying Einstein’s theory, point to possible alternative scenarios, where this collapse might be avoided.
These and related topics are addressed in this book in a series of highly readable chapters. In addition, the book includes fundamental analyses of the practicalities involved in transiting to an electricity supply mainly based on renewableenergies, investigating this scenario less from an engineering and more from a physics point of view.
While the topics comprise a large scope of activities, the contributions also show an extensive overlap in the methodology and in the analytical and numerical tools involved in tackling these diverse research fields that are the forefront of modern science.
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Table of contents (27 chapters)
Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Prof. Dr. Stefan Schramm is teaching at the Institute of theoretical Physics at Frankfurt University and is member of the Frankfurt Institute of Advanced Studies (FIAS). His main research interests are: Models of Strongly Interacting Matter, Nuclear Astrophysics and Renewable Energies - Modeling the Grid. He is also co-author of the textbook Quantum Chromodynamics (Greiner, Schramm, Stein).
Mirko Schafer received his Diploma in physics from the University of Gießen in 2006. After a PhD in physics at the University of Frankfurt in 2011, he has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Mathematics at Aarhus University and at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. Since 2016 he is working as a Postdoctoral Fellow on complex networked systems and the system integration of renewable energy at the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: New Horizons in Fundamental Physics
Editors: Stefan Schramm, Mirko Schäfer
Series Title: FIAS Interdisciplinary Science Series
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44165-8
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Physics and Astronomy, Physics and Astronomy (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2017
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-44164-1Published: 21 November 2016
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-83000-1Published: 28 June 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-44165-8Published: 11 November 2016
Series ISSN: 2522-8900
Series E-ISSN: 2522-8919
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: IX, 389
Number of Illustrations: 39 b/w illustrations, 95 illustrations in colour
Topics: Nuclear Physics, Heavy Ions, Hadrons, Atoms and Molecules in Strong Fields, Laser Matter Interaction, Applications of Graph Theory and Complex Networks, Astrophysics and Astroparticles
Industry Sectors: Energy, Utilities & Environment