Topics requested for admission to the doctoral study at NI-NPP

Nuclear engineering - department of physics (nuclear and particle physics specialization)

Field: Detectors and accelerators

  1. Gas detectors, proportional regime, MWPC, drift chambers, TPC.
  2. Semiconductor detectors, basic characteristics, position sensitive semiconductor detectors.
  3. Photodetectors, avalanche diodes, SiPM, PMT.
  4. Scintillator detectors, organic, inorganic, liquid.
  5. Calorimeters, electromagnetic, hadronic, sampling, homogeneous.
  6. Particle identification: time of flight, ionisation loss, Cherenkov radiation, transition radiation.
  7. Electrostatic accelerators: basic principles, comparison among the different types.
  8. Radiofrequency accelerators: overview, basic principles.
  9. Cyclotrons: basic principles, injection and extraction of particles.
  10. Synchrotron accelerators: basic principles, advantages with respect to cyclotrons.

Field: Theoretical knowledge

  1. SU(2) x U(1) gauge theory for leptons: weak charged and neutral currents, electromagnetic interactions, Weinberg angle, unification condition.
  2. SU(2) x U(1) gauge theory: interactions of vectorial bosons, residual divergences, need for a scalar boson.
  3. Higgs mechanism for SU(2) x U(1). Interactions of the Higgs boson.
  4. Quark sector of the standard model: problems with the three-quark model and introduction of a fourth quark (Cabbibo angle, GIM construction) extension to 6 quarks and CKM matrix.
  5. Additive quark model: SU(3) flavour symmetry, isospin, hypercharge and Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula, SU(6) flavour-spin symmetry, problems of the quark model, OZI rule.
  6. Elastic scattering of a lepton with a point-like nucleon (Mott cross section), and with a finite nucleon (Rosenbluth formula, form factors).
  7. Proton structure and deep-inelastic scattering (kinematic variables, cross section, structure functions, Callan-Gross relation, Bjorken scaling).
  8. Parton model, infinite momentum frame, parton distribution functions.
  9. QCD: splitting functions, partons in hadrons, evolution equations, factorisation, fragmentation functions.
  10. QCD Lagrangian, differences between QCD and QED, running coupling constant