6288

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

Nuclear

Physics

The Core of Matter,

The Fuel of Stars

Committee on Nuclear Physics

Board on Physics and Astronomy

Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Applications

National Research Council

NATIONAL ACADEMY PRESS

Washington, D.C. 1999

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is president of the National Academy of Sciences.

The National Academy of Engineering was established in 1964, under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. It is autonomous in its administration and in the selection of its members, sharing with the National Academy of Sciences the responsibility for advising the federal government. The National Academy of Engineering also sponsors engineering programs aimed at meeting national needs, encourages education and research, and recognizes the superior achievements of engineers. Dr. William A. Wulf is president of the National Academy of Engineering.

The Institute of Medicine was established in 1970 by the National Academy of Sciences to secure the services of eminent members of appropriate professions in the examination of policy matters pertaining to the health of the public. The Institute acts under the responsibility given to the National Academy of Sciences by its congressional charter to be an advisor to the federal government and, upon its own initiative, to identify issues of medical care, research, and education. Dr. Kenneth I. Shine is president of the Institute of Medicine.

The National Research Council was established by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. William A. Wulf are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.

This project was supported by the Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-FG02- 96ER40957 and the National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-9515524. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the agencies that provided support for this project.

Copyright 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

COMMITTEE ON NUCLEAR PHYSICS

JOHN P. SCHIFFER, Argonne National Laboratory and University of Chicago,

Chair

SAM M. AUSTIN, Michigan State University

GORDON A. BAYM, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign THOMAS W. DONNELLY, Massachusetts Institute of Technology BRADLEY FILIPPONE, California Institute of Technology STUART FREEDMAN, University of California at Berkeley WICK C. HAXTON, University of Washington

WALTER F. HENNING, Argonne National Laboratory NATHAN ISGUR, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility

BARBARA JACAK, State University of New York at Stony Brook WITOLD NAZAREWICZ, University of Tennessee at Knoxville

VIJAY R. PANDHARIPANDE, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign PETER PAUL,* State University of New York at Stony Brook

STEVEN E. VIGDOR, Indiana University

DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director

ROBERT L. RIEMER, Senior Program Officer

*Currently at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

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BOARD ON PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

ROBERT C. DYNES, University of California at San Diego, Chair ROBERT C. RICHARDSON, Cornell University, Vice Chair STEVEN CHU, Stanford University

VAL FITCH, Princeton University

IVAR GIAEVER, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute RICHARD HAZELTINE, University of Texas at Austin

JOHN P. HUCHRA, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics JOHN C. MATHER, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

R.G. HAMISH ROBERTSON, University of Washington JOSEPH H. TAYLOR, JR., Princeton University

KATHLEEN C. TAYLOR, General Motors Research and Development Center J. ANTHONY TYSON, Lucent Technologies

GEORGE WHITESIDES, Harvard University

DONALD C. SHAPERO, Director

ROBERT L. RIEMER, Associate Director

KEVIN D. AYLESWORTH, Program Officer

NATASHA CASEY, Senior Administrative Associate

GRACE WANG, Project Assistant

iv

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

COMMISSION ON PHYSICAL SCIENCES,

MATHEMATICS, AND APPLICATIONS

PETER M. BANKS, ERIM International, Inc., Co-chair

W. CARL LINEBERGER, University of Colorado, Co-chair WILLIAM BROWDER, Princeton University

LAWRENCE D. BROWN, University of Pennsylvania MARSHALL H. COHEN, California Institute of Technology RONALD G. DOUGLAS, Texas A&M University

JOHN E. ESTES, University of California at Santa Barbara JERRY P. GOLLUB, Haverford College

MARTHA P. HAYNES, Cornell University

JOHN L. HENNESSY, Stanford University

CAROL M. JANTZEN, Westinghouse Savannah River Company PAUL KAMINSKI, Technovation, Inc.

KENNETH H. KELLER, University of Minnesota

MARGARET G. KIVELSON, University of California at Los Angeles DANIEL KLEPPNER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

JOHN R. KREICK, Sanders, a Lockheed Martin Company MARSHA I. LESTER, University of Pennsylvania

M. ELISABETH PATÉ-CORNELL, Stanford University NICHOLAS P. SAMIOS, Brookhaven National Laboratory CHANG-LIN TIEN, University of California at Berkeley

NORMAN METZGER, Executive Director

v

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

Preface

The Committee on Nuclear Physics was established by the Board on Physics and Astronomy as part of its decadal survey series, Physics in a New Era. The committee met four times over the course of a year. It heard from program managers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) and solicited input from the nuclear physics community through the American Physical Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics. A set of peer readers who were asked by the committee to read the draft report (J. Friar, G. Garvey, K. Gelbke, E. Henley, B. Holstein, and R. Holt) provided valuable perspectives, and their comments had an influence on the report. The comments of the reviewers of the report (see page ix) also provided useful input. The committee would like to thank both groups for their time and help. In addition, the list of individuals who helped with material for the report in a variety of ways is too long to enumerate, and the committee wishes to express its gratitude for this assistance.

As part of the physics survey, the overall objective of the study was to help the general public, the government agencies concerned with the support of science, Congress, and the physics community to envision the future of this field within the nation’s overall physics effort.

The report of the committee is in the context of previous planning for the field and follows the reports of the 1972 Physics Survey’s Nuclear Physics Panel, chaired by J. Weneser, and the 1986 Physics Survey’s Nuclear Physics Panel, chaired by J. Cerny, as well as the planning of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), a joint advisory committee of the NSF and DOE. In particular, the committee drew on the 1996 report Nuclear Science: A Long Range Plan,

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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

prepared by NSAC (available from the Division of Nuclear Physics, Office of Science, DOE, or the Nuclear Science Section, Physics Division, NSF). The NSAC Long Range Plans represent a wide community involvement in shaping the field.

The committee would like to acknowledge the assistance of Donald C. Shapero, director, Board on Physics and Astronomy, and Robert L. Riemer, senior program officer. The committee would especially like to acknowledge the late David Schramm, who started the present review and discussed the committee’s task at its first meeting. His unique enthusiasm for physics and profound interest and many contributions to the nuclear physics of astrophysical phenomena are missed in nuclear physics as indeed in all of physics.

The committee would like to acknowledge the support provided by grants from NSF’s Physics Division and DOE’s Office of Science.

John P. Schiffer, Chair

Committee on Nuclear Physics

Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Nuclear Physics: The Core of Matter, The Fuel of Stars

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/6288.html

Acknowledgment of Reviewers

This report has been reviewed by individuals chosen for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance with procedures approved by the National Research Council’s (NRC’s) Report Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide candid and critical comments that will assist the authors and the NRC in making the published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to the study charge. The contents of the review comments and draft manuscript remain confidential to protect the integrity of the deliberative process. We wish to thank the following individuals for their participation in the review of this report:

Gary Adams, Rensselaer Polytechnic University,

Felix Boehm, California Institute of Technology,

Stanley J. Brodsky, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center,

Richard Casten, Yale University,

Ernest M. Henley, University of Washington,

Jerry Garrett, Oak Ridge National Laboratory,

J. Ross Macdonald, University of North Carolina,

Peter Parker, Yale University,

R.G. Hamish Robertson, University of Washington, and

James P. Vary, Iowa State University.

Although the individuals listed above have provided many constructive comments and suggestions, responsibility for the final content of this report rests solely with the authoring committee and the NRC.

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