This book summarizes the recent development of nuclear science as an important part of mesoscopic physics, the intermediate world between the macroscopic and microscopic. This fast developing area with many practical applications includes complex atoms, molecules (including biological), nuclei, small-scale solid state systems, and future quantum computers. The complexity of the problem appears due to the richness of problems, from the necessity to study individual quantum levels, to the fundamental features of statistics and thermodynamics.

The principal goals of the study were to articulate the scientific rationale and objectives of the field and then to take a long-term strategic view of U.S. nuclear science in the global context for setting future directions for the field. Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter provides a long-term assessment of an outlook for nuclear physics. The first phase of the report articulates the scientific rationale and objectives of the field, while the second phase provides a global context for the field and its long-term priorities and proposes a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond. In the second phase of the study, also developing a framework for progress through 2020 and beyond, the committee carefully considered the balance between universities and government facilities in terms of research and workforce development and the role of international collaborations in leveraging future investments. Nuclear physics today is a diverse field, encompassing research that spans dimensions from a tiny fraction of the volume of the individual particles (neutrons and protons) in the atomic nucleus to the enormous scales of astrophysical objects in the cosmos. Nuclear Physics: Exploring the Heart of Matter explains the research objectives, which include the desire not only to better understand the nature of matter interacting at the nuclear level, but also to describe the state of the universe that existed at the big bang. This report explains how the universe can now be studied in the most advanced colliding-beam accelerators, where strong forces are the dominant interactions, as well as the nature of neutrinos.

This advanced textbook presents an extensive and diverse study of low-energy nuclear physics considering the nucleus as a quantum system of strongly interacting constituents. The contents guide students from the basic facts and ideas to more modern topics including important developments over the last 20 years, resulting in a comprehensive collection of major modern-day nuclear models otherwise unavailable in the current literature. The book emphasizes the common features of the nucleus and other many-body mesoscopic systems currently in the center of interest in physics. The authors have also included full problem sets that can be selected by lecturers and adjusted to specific interests for more advanced students, with many chapters containing links to freely available computer code. As a result, readers are equipped for scientific work in mesoscopic physics.

Proceedings of the International Conference on The Nucleus: New Physics for the New Millennium, held January 18-22, 1999, at the National Accelerator Centre, Faure, South Africa

Advanced materials are the basis of modern science and technology. This proceedings volume presents a broad spectrum of studies of novel materials covering their processing techniques, physics, mechanics, and applications. The book is concentrated on nanostructures, ferroelectric crystals, materials and composites, materials for solar cells and also polymeric composites. Nanotechnology approaches, modern piezoelectric techniques and also latest achievements in materials science, condensed matter physics, mechanics of deformable solids and numerical methods are presented. Great attention is devoted to novel devices with high accuracy, longevity and extended possibilities to work in wide temperature and pressure ranges, aggressive media etc. The characteristics of materials and composites with improved properties opening new possibilities of various physical processes, in particular transmission and receipt of signals under water, are described.

This book presents the hotly debated question of whether quantum mechanics plays a non-trivial role in biology. In a timely way, it sets out a distinct quantum biology agenda. The burgeoning fields of nanotechnology, biotechnology, quantum technology, and quantum information processing are now strongly converging. The acronym BINS, for Bio-Info-Nano-Systems, has been coined to describe the synergetic interface of these several disciplines. The living cell is an information replicating and processing system that is replete with naturally-evolved nanomachines, which at some level require a quantum mechanical description. As quantum engineering and nanotechnology meet, increasing use will be made of biological structures, or hybrids of biological and fabricated systems, for producing novel devices for information storage and processing and other tasks. An understanding of these systems at a quantum mechanical level will be indispensable.

Faithful communication is a necessary precondition for large-scale quantum information processing and networking, irrespective of the physical platform. Thus, the problems of quantum-state transfer and quantum-network engineering have attracted enormous interest over the last years, and constitute one of the most active areas of research in quantum information processing. The present volume introduces the reader to fundamental concepts and various aspects of this exciting research area, including links to other related areas and problems. The implementation of state-transfer schemes and the engineering of quantum networks are discussed in the framework of various quantum optical and condensed matter systems, emphasizing the interdisciplinary character of the research area. Each chapter is a review of theoretical or experimental achievements on a particular topic, written by leading scientists in the field. The volume aims at both newcomers as well as experienced researchers.