Encyclopedia of Nuclear Physics

There have been many foundational advances in nuclear physics over the past few decades that are not widely known in the physics community. Review articles describing these advances are too advanced or detailed to be easily accessible to those without specialized knowledge. Encyclopedia of Nuclear Physics will fill this void and provide a point of entry to the literature for undergraduate and graduate students and early career researchers across all areas of physics. It will be particularly valuable to those engaging in interdisciplinary research at the intersections of nuclear physics, particle physics, condensed matter physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. The scope of nuclear physics has grown rapidly, and its utility in astrophysics, cosmology, and particle physics is now widely recognized. However, finding accessible descriptions of these developments is daunting because the sources are few and widely dispersed. A reference work with a brief and accessible description of a comprehensive list of topics is needed to help undergraduate and graduate students and researchers navigate the literature. This encyclopedia will contain approximately 200 chapters that will provide succinct introductory descriptions of experimental and theoretical results and techniques in nuclear physics and will identify reliable sources for further reading. With a clear and logical template throughout, content will be divided into the following five sections, each of which contain chapters written by leading scientists who have pursued theoretical tools and methods and/or gathered and evaluated the most important data published within the field: Section 1 - Nuclear structure and reactions. Chapters include: nuclear forces, properties of nuclei, the emergence of complexity and collective quantum behavior, nuclear reactions, nuclear pairing, shell structure and its evolution with neutron and proton excess, experimental techniques, ab intio nuclear theory, effective field theory, mean-field theory, and nuclear models. Section 2 - Nuclear and Neutrino Astrophysics. Chapters include: nuclear reaction in stars, nucleosynthesis, explosive nuclear burning, nuclear reactions in compact objects, dense nuclear and neutron matter, dense matter equation of state and neutron star structure, neutrino cooling and neutrino reactions in stars, supernovae, and neutron star mergers. Section 3 - Fundamental Symmetries and Nuclear Probes of High Energy Physics. Chapters include: weak interactions on hadrons and nuclei, neutrino properties, double-beta decay, nuclear physics of dark matter cross-sections, neutron dipole moment, anapole moment, searches for new physics. Section 4 - QCD under extreme conditions and QCD phase diagram. Chapters include: heavy-ion collisions at low, intermediate, and high energy, the phase diagram of QCD, phases of QCD, Quark Gluon Plasma (QGP), shear viscosity and related transport properties of the QGP, lattice QCD and QCD thermodynamics, hydrodynamics and transport phenomena in heavy ion collisions, energy loss, chiral magnetic effect and related manifestations of quantum anomalies. Section 5 - High energy QCD and hadron structure. Chapters include: perturbative QCD, deep-inelastic scattering, scattering processes at high-energy, light-cone perturbation theory, parton distribution functions, gluons, and color glass condensate, quark model, exotic hadrons, lattice QCD calculations of hadrons. Advanced interactive features such as videos and 3D viewers are included, significantly increasing the practicality and learning outcomes for the modern-day reader for whom online usage is preferred. The result is the ideal one-stop foundational resource to the complex field of nuclear physics and an essential tool for physicists to refer to time and again.