PHY307 - Introduction to Subatomic Physics (2023-2024)

Prerequisites: PHY204, PHY205
Recommended previous courses: PHY106, PHY301

The quest for finding the ultimate constituents
of matter has revealed that matter
has a nested structure quarks at scales
that differ by many orders of magnitudes:
atoms contain electrons and nuclei;
nuclei a made up of nucleons, which in
turn are composed of. Nowadays, particle
physicists are more concerned with the
fundamental laws that govern the interactions
of elementary particles. The most
emblematic question is “how do particles
acquire mass”; and the discovery of the
Higgs boson in 2012 is an important clue
that we are on the right path to answering
this question.
This course will give a pedestrian introduction
to nuclear and particle physics,
illustrating in a balanced fashion theoretical
underpinnings, experimental activities
and technological aspects of subatomic
physics. The basis for this course will be
the PHY205 and PHY301 (introductory
and advanced quantum physics) as well
as PHY204 (theoretical electrodynamics).

The following subjects are expected to be treated:
❯ the big picture of the structure of matter
and the great discoveries
❯ nuclear binding energy; nuclear models
(droplet model; fermi-gas model); isotopic
spin
❯ particle accelerators and colliders
❯ decay of elementary and subatomic particles
decay
❯ scattering experiments: nucleus,
nucleons, quarks
❯ the nonrelativistic quark-model and the
magnetic moment of the nucleons
❯ neutrino oscillations.