This course aims to give an introduction to the subject of nuclear physics at the level appropriate for the B3 exam. It is a derivative from last years course as held by Tony Weidberg and Armin Reichold. Dr. Weidberg is not lecturing this term because he is on sabbatical. At the end of the course you should understand:
For a useful Table of Nuclides see this pdf file. Extracts from this table are being used across the lectures and you may find it useful to find out what nuclei actually are like and how they decay. A suggested reading list can be found in this pdf file
In order to follow the course we strongly recommend that you attend all lectures. This course is not intended to be doable just by the notes and books. If we thought that was a good concept we would not offer you the lectures. In order to follow the lecture it is strongly recommended that you print the notes and bring them to the lectures so you can augment the notes and make the meaningful to "YOU". The notes will not be too useful to you unless you do this.
Those parts of the lecture notes that are finalised are marked with (Final). We suggest you print only these. Lectures marked with (Preliminary) are under review and will most likely change in minor aspect only. Each lectures set of notes should be (Final) at least a day or two before it is being held.
Some lectures use animated overlays. The prints of these slides can sometimes hide the information in the lower layers. In the pdf notes we try to reproduced these slides at the end of each lecture with the obstructions removed.
Lecture 3 and start of 4: Nuclear stability and radioactive decays : ppt file or pdf file (Final)
Lectures 4 and 5 : The end of the SEMF and the Shell Modell: ppt file or pdf file (Final)
8/10/06 This site went online
10/10/06, 21:30 Fixed broken links to Problem Sets
11/10/06, 06:30 Fixed broken link to Lecture 1
13/10/06, 10:15 Minor typographical corrections to ppt and pdf of lecture 1, also corrected schedule of lectures in these files
13/10/06, 11:55 Added reading list link
17/10/06, 12:50 Corrected lecture times in synopsis files
17/10/06, 16:35 Updated lecture 4&5 ppt and pdf files
19/10/06, 11:20 Updated lecture 2 ppt and pdf with very minor typographical and animation corrections
20/10/06, 10:12 Fixed a bug in problem Set 1, replaced Z*Z+1 with Z*Z-1 in question 3
20/10/06, 13:15 Updated lecture 3 with some very minor bug fixes
27/10/06, 12:10 Updates lectures 6&7 with a preliminary version that is ok up to slide 17. Done this as we are slightly ahead of schedule and I may need the beginning of lecture 6 already near the end of lecture 5.
27/10/06, 17:00 Corrected error on slide 15 in derivation of Z from density of states. Algebraic factor was wrong. Corrected consequential errors on slide 16. Correct error on slide 16 in change of variables from Z,N,A to y,A. New factor of 2^(-5/3) introduced.
27/10/06, 18:30 Updated lectures 6&7. All up to Rutherford Scattering (slide 21) is now correct
30/10/06, 12:50 Updated Reading list
31/10/06, 12:00 Final version of lecture 6&7 uploaded
31/10/06, 20:45 Updated lecture 8&9 so that first part on alpha decay is usable (up to slide 13)
3/11/06, 18:45 Fixed incorrect numbering of lectures in the above, minor bug fixes to lectures 8&9 and 6&7, updated the list of students that found bugs
16/11/06, 16:45 Updated lecture 8&9 to their final version and updated list of bug-finders
17/11/06, 10:30 Minor changes to lecture 8&9 and lecture 10&11
23/11/06, 11:30 Minor changes to lectures 10&11 in both ppt and pdf format
23/11/06, 17:50 Bug fix on slide 9 of lectures 8&9
24/11/06, 11:30 Minor updates to lecture 12, mainly about PMTs
28/11/06, 17:45 Lecture 12 became final without any changes
28/11/06, 20:35 Final version of lecture 13
01/12/06, 10:30 Fixed bug in link to document that shows who found how many errors,
All feedback will be very welcome! Please let us know of any mistakes in the lectures or suggestions as to how to improve the course. Please email: a.reichold1@physics.ox.ac.uk or come and find me in DWB (room 602 soon to move, check News).
The list of students finding mistakes in the lecture notes is here.