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.

The increasing precision of experimental data in many areas of elementary particle physics requires an equally precise theoretical description. In particular, radiative corrections (described by one- and multi-loop Feynman diagrams) have to be considered. Although a growing number of physicists are involved in such projects, multi-loop calculation methods can only be studied from original publications. With its coverage of multi-loop calculations, this book serves as an excellent supplement to the standard textbooks on quantum field theory. Based around postgraduate-level lectures given by the author, the material is suitable for both beginners and graduate students.

This title gives students a good understanding of how quantum mechanics describes the material world. The text stresses the continuity between the quantum world and the classical world, which is merely an approximation to the quantum world.