Abstract
Highly excited nuclei are characterised by their temperature. We present a thermodynamical description of nuclei and discuss compound nuclei and quantum chaos. Heavy ion reactions have proven themselves especially useful in the investigation of the thermodynamical properties of nuclear matter. Aspects of transitions from a liquid to a gaseous state are discussed as well as the phase diagram of hadronic matter and the possible formation of a quark-gluon plasma. The results of nuclear thermodynamics are also of great importance for cosmology and astrophysics. At the end of this chapter we depict current ideas about the evolution of the universe and show the consequences of this evolution for our modern picture of particle physics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
A similar process takes place in stars: the electromagnetic radiation in the interior of the Sun is at many millions of K. On its way out it cools down via interactions with matter. What we observe is white light whose spectrum corresponds to the temperature of the solar surface. In contrast to hot nuclear matter, the Sun is of course in equilibrium and is not expanding.
- 2.
The above analogy from astrophysics is also applicable here: the neutrinos which are created in fusion reactions in the solar interior are almost unhindered in their escape from the Sun. Their energy spectrum thus corresponds to the temperature at their production point and not to that of the surface.
- 3.
In principle the standard model of particle physics fulfils the three conditions, but predicts a matter-antimatter asymmetry that is smaller than the observed one (20.5) by ten orders of magnitude.
References
P.A.R. Ade et al., arXiv:1303.5076
L. Bergström, A. Goobar, Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics, 2nd edn. (Springer, Berlin/Heidelberg/New York/Tokyo, 2006)
G. Bertone, Particle Dark Matter (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010)
H.A. Bethe, G. Brown, Sci. Am. 252, 40 (1985)
A. Bohr, B.R. Mottelson, Nuclear Structure (Benjamin, New York, 1969)
C. Budtz-Jorgensen, H.-H. Knitter, Nucl. Phys. A490, 307 (1988)
E.M. Burbidge et al., Rev. Mod. Phys. 29, 547 (1957)
C.W. Cook et al., Phys. Rev. 107, 508 (1957)
T. Ericson, T. Mayer-Kuckuk, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Sci. 16, 183 (1966)
D.J. Fixsen et al., Astrophys. J. 473, 576 (1996)
P. Glässel et al., Nucl. Phys. A502, 315c (1989)
G. Hinshaw et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 170, 288 (2007)
G. Hinshaw et al., Astrophys. J. Suppl. 208, 19 (2013)
F. Hoyle. Mon. Not. R. Astro. Soc. 106, 343 (1946)
F. Hoyle, Astrophys. J. Suppl. 1, 121 (1954)
A.A. Penzias, R.W. Wilson, Astrophys. J. 142, 419 (1965)
J. Pochodzalla et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1040 (1995)
E.E. Salpeter, Astrophys. J. 115, 326 (1952)
S. Serjeant, Observational Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2010)
J.M. Smith, Did Darwin Get It Right? (Chapman & Hall, New York/London, 1989)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Povh, B., Rith, K., Scholz, C., Zetsche, F., Rodejohann, W. (2015). Nuclear Thermodynamics. In: Particles and Nuclei. Graduate Texts in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46321-5_20
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-46321-5_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-662-46320-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-662-46321-5
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)