Introduction à la physique des hadrons is the title of the book to be published in October in the collection “New Frontiers in Nuclear Physics” of the publisher EDP Sciences. This book is accessible to master students and researchers who want to learn about the world of hadrons.
The book by Jean-Marc Richard, from the Institut de physique des deux infinis de Lyon (IP2I), presents a panorama of the elementary particles with strong interactions, such as the proton and the neutron, constituents of the nucleus, the pion which ensures their binding, and all their excitations. The quark model is presented in detail. It proposes a unified description of all these hadrons and extends to particles with strangeness, charm or beauty. The presentation gives a lot of space to the history, and even to some piquant anecdotes that have marked the theoretical and experimental progress.
This book is intended for M1 and M2 students, as well as for physicists and chemists wishing to learn about the world of hadrons, which is shared by nuclear and particle physics. The understanding can be tested by the dozens of exercises that are proposed, as well as a solution for some of them.