Pre-Equilibrium Nuclear Reactions (Oxford Studies in Nuclear Physics)

ISBN: 0198517343

Author: Gadioli, E.

Condition: New

Product DescriptionWhen a projectile and a target nucleus interact, creating a composite nucleus, the energy initially concentrated on a few nucleons spreads through the composite nucleus, which evolves towards a state of statistical equilibrium. During this equilibration process, nucleons, or aggregates of nucleons, having considerable energy, may be ejected. This book gives a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the experimental and theoretical research that has been devoted, during the past 25 years, to the study of these pre-equilibrium reactions. After a historical introduction, the theories of the reactions are described in detail, beginning with the phenomenological exciton and master equation theories and going on to the fully quantum-mechanical theories of Feshbach, Kerman and Koonin, Tamura and Udagawa, and Weidenmuller and colleagues. The multistep compound and multistep direct theories are considered separately, and all the theories are extensively compared with experimental data. Adetailed account of compound nucleus reactions is also included, together with a review of the theories of the nuclear-level densities that are needed to evaluate pre-equilibrium cross-sections. The main emphasis of the book is on nucleon-induced reactions, but those due to composite particles and heavy ions are also considered.From the Back CoverWhile we have attempted to mention at least the most important developments in the theory of pre-equilibrium reactions, the volume of work in this area over the last few years has been so immense that it is not possible to give a comprehensive account of all that has been done. Our aim is to describe as clearly as we can the main physical ideas and to sketch the mathematical formulations that have been developed to enable practical calculations to be made. We attach particular importance to the detailed comparisons between theory and experiment because only in this way is it possible to assess the usefulness and validity of the theories that have been proposed.