An Introduction to Theoretical Nuclear Physics

Scott Bogner (NSCL/MSU) July 23, 2008

Different Length Scales

1026 m 1024 m 1022 m 1014 m 107 m 100 m 10-2 m 10-5 m 10-8 m 10-10 m 10-14 m 10-15 m 10-16 m 10-22 m universe cluster of galaxies milky way solar system/star earth human beings insects cells DNA atom nucleus nucleons quarks/gluons strings?

Many aspects governed by laws of Classical Physics

Purely Quantum Phenomena

Nuclei are REALLY small

Atoms are really small
Typical atomic size: ~10-10 m 10,000,000 atoms in a row: thickness of your ngernail Best (scanning tunneling) microscopes are just good enough to resolve individual atoms

Nuclei are another factor 100,000 smaller

Typical nuclear size: ~10-15 m Nucleus inside an atom is like a golf ball in a football stadium (but contains almost all of the mass!)

How do we learn about nuclei?

We hit the nuclei (with other nuclei or elementary particles or gamma rays) and watch what happens. Nuclear processes require high energy (> 1 MeV)
More than 100,000 times the energy of chemical processes

Nuclear processes last a very short time (<10-21 s)

A billionth of a billionth of a millisecond! Once the nuclear reaction products are detected, the reaction has long been over Direct observation of many nuclei and nuclear processes is impossible

We need theory to understand and model the experimental results and thus learn about nuclei!

Nuclei: From Simplicity to Complexity

RIA CEBAF RHIC
quarks gluons few nucleons heavy nuclei

vacuum

quark-gluon plasma QCD

nucleon few-body systems many-body systems QCD free NN force effective NN force

The Challenge for Nuclear Theorists

Starting from the forces between nucleons, can we solve the equations of Quantum Mechanics to predict all observable properties of all nuclei? Analogous to what is done in theoretical chemistry given the Coulomb force between electronsexcept our problem is much harder!

1) 2) 3) 4)

1) What binds protons and neutrons into stable/rare nuclei?

2)

e.g., collective rotations and vibrations involving all of the nucleons in a nucleus moving in concert w/each other.

3) How were the heavy elements made?

1. What is dark matter? 2. What is dark energy? 3. How were the heavy elements from iron to uranium made? 4. ..

Atoms, Nuclei, and Nucleons

Quantum Mechanics in 5 Minutes

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle

h = Plancks Constant = 6.63 x 10-34 Joule-Second

Quantum Mechanics in 5 Minutes

Alternative form of Uncertainty Principle:

(I.e., Energy)

Quantum Mechanics in 5 Minutes

Atoms, Nuclei, etc. can only exist in certain allowable discrete (quantum) states
e.g., Boron-10 nucleus has states with different discrete energies and angular momentum Only certain quantum numbers (I.e., values of energy and angular momentum) appear in Nature.

Feynman Diagrams

virtual particles can do weird things like violate the Conservation of Energy (!!) by an amount !E provided we pay it back in !t = h/(4"!E)

The Strong Force at Work

The strong-force between 2 nucleons is due to the exchange of virtual pairs of quarks (called mesons).

= several fermi
( 1 fermi = 10-15 m)

Unfortunately, only the longest range part of the nuclear force (due to pion-exchange) is well-known and understood.

Three-Body Forces Between Nucleons

A three-body force is a force that does not exist in a system of two particles but appears in a system of three particles.

A Corny Analogy:
People <---> particles Emotions <---> forces

Then jealousy is like a three-body force!!

Three-Body Forces Between Nucleons

A three-body force is a force that does not exist in a system of two particles but appears in a system of three particles. Ex: Gravitational force between Earth, Moon, and a satellite

Three-Body Forces Between Nucleons

A three-body force is a force that does not exist in a system of two particles but appears in a system of three particles. Ex: Gravitational force between Earth, Moon, and a satellite

Tidal bulge changes mass distribution (and hence gravitational force)

Three-Body Forces Between Nucleons

The 3-body nuclear force arises from the squishiness of nucleons since they are composite objects made up of quarks. Quarks <---> Earths Oceans in the previous example

N N N

Complexity in Many-Body Systems

VERY Schematically mesoscopic systems are the hardest! # of particles

log C
Np
Complexity

10 2 ! 10 5

few-body systems are easy in that the quantum mechanical equations can often be solved exactly, sometimes just with pencil and paper! paradoxically, systems with millions (or even #) of particles are often easy to describe since statistical trends and regularities emerge independent of details Nuclear theorists are unlucky as nuclei consist of 10s or 100s of particles and fall in between (mesoscopic)

Computers are essential to solve these problems!

Moores Law
Computer speed doubles every 18 months (Moores Law) Data storage doubles every 12 months Network speed doubles every 9 months Improvement 1988 to 2005 Computers: x 2,500 Storage: x 130,000 Networks: x 6,600,000 Physics limits not to be reached for another decade or more
Moores Law vs. storage improvements vs. optical improvements. Graph from Scientific American (Jan2001) by Cleo Vilett, source Vined, Khoslan, Kleiner, Caufield and Perkins.

Computer Speeds and Moores Law

BlueGene Earth Simulator ASCI White ASCI Red

Visualization using Computers

$ Insight
Multiscale model of HIV Collection: D. Dean, ORNL Accelerator design

Type IA supernova explosion (BIG SPLASH)

Atmospheric models

Fusion Stellarator

Materials: Quantum Corral

Nuclear Physics: STAR event (G.D. Westfall)

Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing

(SciDAC) Huge national effort to bring theoretical physicists and computer scientists together to attack cutting edge problems using supercomputers.
Project Building a Universal Nuclear Energy Density Functional

MSU is a member multi-million $ project Funded in 5 year intervals Paradigm shift of how science is done (open source codes, etc.) SciDAC funds several other big science collaborations, see http://www.scidac.gov

An example : Mass
Particle kg Proton u MeV/c2

1.673x1 1.00727 938.28 0-27 6

Neutron 1.675x1 1.00866 939.57 0-27 5 Electron 9.11x10 5.486x1 0.511 -31 0-4
1 unified mass unit: mass(12C)/12 Einstein: E=mc2 so: m=E/c2 1u=931.494 MeV/c2 1eV=1.60217733x10-19 J 1MeV=1.60217733x10-13 J

Binding energy and Mass

The total energy (mass) of a bound system is less than the combined energy (mass) of the separated nucleons!! Example: deuteron 2H (1 proton + 1 neutron) mp =1.007825 u mn =1.008665 u mp+n =2.016490 u m2H=2.014102 u

The deuteron is 0.002338 u lighter than the sum of the proton and the neutron. This is the binding energy and is the energy needed to break that nucleus apart

Binding energy

MeV per Nucleon

Most stable

M(A)=M(Z)+M(N)-B(N,Z)

Can we (theorists) calculate these from first principles?

Measured Binding energy

Atomic mass

To give a taste of the types of calculations we can now do:

Calculate the binding energies of > 2000 nuclei in a matter of hours RMS error ~ 1-2 MeV (out of 100s of MeV)

Many of these sophisticated computer programs are freely available thanks to SciDAC. ==> More science gets done in this open source model.

Summary
The Big Questions in nuclear theory are often intimately related to the Big Questions in other elds of science, most notably Astrophysics. Nuclear theorists must contend with complications that our friends in other areas of physics and chemistry never have to worry about.
Three-body forces exist Incomplete knowledge of the nuclear forces The nuclear force is a strong force Nuclei are mesoscopic systems

As a consequence, advanced supercomputing resources are essential to our eld. Indeed, one can even say a new discipline of Computational Physics has arisen in the last two decades. Thanks to SciDAC, our community is slowly embracing the open source model, which will hopefully result in more physics getting done!