Particles and Nuclei

Theoriginalchaptersondeepinelasticscatteringwereformulatedin1993. Since this time a large amount of new experimental data have been obtained at the Electron-Proton Collider HERA at DESY in Hamburg. In summer of 2007 the Collider was turned o?. The chapters 7 and 8 were partially rewritten as to include the most spectacular new results on deep inelastic scattering. I would like to thank Tina Pollmann for preparing the ?gures and Jurgen ¨ Sawinski for the formatting of the Sixth Edition. Heidelberg, February 2008 Bogdan Povh Preface to the Fourth and the Fifth Edition In the last two editions we included new results on the neutrino oscillations as evidence for a non-vanishing mass of the neutrinos. In the present edition we have rewritten the chapter on “Phenomenology oftheWeakInteraction”(Chapter10)inordertogiveacoherentpresentation oftheneutrinoproperties.Furthermore,weextendedthechapteron“Nuclear Thermodynamics” (Chapter 19). Heidelberg, July 2006 Bogdan Povh Preface to the First Edition The aim of Particles and Nuclei is to give a uni?ed description of nuclear and particle physics because the experiments which have uncovered thesubstructureofatomicnucleiandnucleonsareconceptuallysimilar.With theprogressofexperimentalandtheoreticalmethods,atoms,nuclei,nucleons, and ?nally quarks have been analysed during the course of this century. The intuitive assumption that our world is composed of a few constituents — an idea which seems attractive, but could not be taken for granted — appears to be con?rmed. Moreover, the interactions between these constituents of matter can be formulated elegantly, and are well understood conceptionally, within the so-called “standard model”. Once we have arrived at this underlying theory we are immediately facedwiththequestionofhowthecomplexstructuresaroundusareproducedbyit.