Nuclear and Particle Physics Simulations

• Roberta Bigelow of Willamette University
• John Philpott of Florida State University
• Joseph Rothberg of University of Washington

• NUCLEAR (Nuclear Energetics and Counting), written by Michael Moloney, is included here, but is described under the Modern Physics heading.

• MODELS (Nuclear Models), written by Roberta Bigelow, calculates energy levels for spherical and deformed nuclei using the single particle shell model. You can explore how the nuclear potential shape, the spin-orbit interaction, and deformation affect both the order and spacing of nuclear energy levels. In addition, you will learn how to predict spin and parity for single particle states.

• RADIATON (Interaction of Radiation with Matter), written by Roberta Bigelow, is a simulation of alpha particles, muons, electrons, or photons interacting with matter. You will develop an understanding of how ranges, energy losses, and random particle paths depend on materials, radiation and incident energy. As a specific application, you can explore photon and electron interactions in a sodium iodide crystal which determines the energy response of a radiation detector.

• ELSCATT (Electron-Nucleus Scattering), by John Philpott, is an interactive software tool that demonstrates various aspects of electron scattering from nuclei. Specific features include the relativistic kinematics of electron scattering, densities and form factors for elastic and inelastic scattering and the nuclear Coulomb responses. The simulation illustrates how detailed nuclear structure information can be obtained from electron scattering measurements.

• TWOBODY (Two-Nucleon Interactions), by John Philpott, is an interactive software tool that illuminates many features of the two-nucleon problem. Bound state wavefunctions and properties can be calculated for a variety of interactions that may included non-central parts. Phase shifts and cross sections for pp, pn and nn scattering can be calculated and compared with those obtained experimentally. Spin-polarization features of the cross sections can be extensively investigated. The simulation demonstrates the richness of the two-nucleon data and its relation to the underlying nucleon-nucleon interaction.

• RELKIN (Relativistic Kinematics), by Joseph Rothberg, is an interactive program to permit you to explore the relativistic kinematics of scattering reactions and two body particle decays. You may choose from among a large number of initial and final states. The initial momentum of the beam particle and the Center of Mass angle of a secondary can also be specified. The program displays the final state vector momenta in both the Lab system and Center of Mass system along with numerical values of the most important kinematic quantities. The program may be run in a Monte Carlo mode displaying a scatter plot and histogram of selected variable. The particle data base may be modified by the user and additional reactions and decay modes may be added.

• DETSIM (Particle Detector Simulation), by Joseph Rothberg, is an interactive tool to allow you to explore methods of determining parameters of a decaying particle or scattering reaction. The program simulates the response of high energy particle detectors to the final state particles from scattering or decays. The detector size and location may be specified by the user as well as its energy and spatial resolution. If the program is run in a Monte Carlo mode, detector hit information for each event is written to a file. This file can be read by a small reconstruction and plotting program. You can easily modify one of the example reconstruction programs that are provided to determine the mass, momentum, and other properties of the initial particle or state.