ERev Sol
ERev Sol
ERev Sol
1 Nuclear Decay
Idea 1
Idea 2
The most common nuclear decay channels are alpha decay,
′
A
ZX → A−4 4
Z−2 X + 2 He
Here, ν e is a light neutral particle called an anti-electron neutrino. A variant of beta decay,
called β + decay or positron emission, is
A ′
ZX →A +
Z−1 X + e + νe
where νe is called an electron neutrino, and e+ is a positron. If electrons are present, the
nuclei may also capture them, leading to the process
A
ZX + e− → A ′
Z−1 X + νe .
Finally, nuclei can decay from excited states by emitting photons, in gamma decay.
There are many more processes, such as inverse beta decay or double beta decay. However, the
general principles underlying which decays are allowed are simple: baryon number, electric
charge, and electron number are all conserved. In the restricted setting of nuclear processes,
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Idea 3
The amount of energy released in a nuclear decay can be inferred from the drop in mass
energy, ∆E = (∆m)c2 . A nuclear decay can only spontaneously occur if it lowers the energy
of the entire nucleus. To emphasize this point, note that at the level of individual nucleons,
β ± decay involve the processes
n → p + e− + ν e , p → n + e+ + ν
(a) 27 Si → 27 Al +
(b) 74 As → 74 Se +
(d) 93 Mo + e− →
Solution. (a) 27 Si → 27 Al + e+ + νe .
(b) 74 As → 74 Se + e− + ν e .
(d) 93 Mo + e− → 93 Nb + νe .
Solution
Temperatures at this scale are not enough to affect nuclear physics, but are enough to affect
atomic physics. The electrons gain enough energy to leave the atoms, then hit other nuclei,
causing electron capture, changing the isotope of beryllium and hence its half-life.
[4] Problem 2. In Gamow’s theory of alpha decay, alpha particles can escape from nuclei by quantum
tunneling. The alpha particle is bound to the nucleus by a nuclear force, which we model as a finite
square well, V (r) = −V0 for r < r1 , and repelled by the Coulomb force, V (r) = k(Ze)(2e)/r = α/r.
The combination of the two creates a potential barrier the alpha particle must tunnel though. Let
the alpha particle have mass m and energy E.
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(a) Using classical mechanics, calculate the time between collisions with the wall. This is also
correct in quantum mechanics; one can take the wavefunction to be a wavepacket, which really
does collide with the walls with the same frequency.
(b) In quantum mechanics, each collision has an associated amplitude to escape by quantum
tunneling. To compute this, recall from X1 that the WKB approximation states that the
wavefunction picks up a phase eiθ , where
Z
1
θ= p dx.
ℏ
Calculate θ by integrating from r1 to r2 , assuming that r1 ≪ r2 for simplicity. You should find
that θ is a complex number, indicating the wavefunction exponentially decays in the barrier.
(Hint: you will find a tricky integral, for which you should use a trigonometric substitution.)
(c) The probability of escape scales as the amplitude squared. Write down an approximate
expression for the timescale τ for decay to occur.
This model is very rough, so the numeric and slowly varying prefactors should not be expected to
be accurate. But the exponential dependence of the timescale
√ on the energy, which you should have
− Eg /E
found is due to the tunneling probability scaling as e for some constant Eg , is by far the
most important piece, and it fits experimental results.
(d) In nuclear fusion reactions in the Sun, the process above occurs in reverse: an incoming alpha
particle (i.e. helium nucleus) needs to tunnel through the Coulomb barrier to fuse with another
nucleus. The initial energy is Boltzmann distributed as e−E/kB T , so the fusion rate is
Z √
Γ ∼ dE e− Eg /E e−E/kB T .
The integrand is the product of a rapidly rising exponential and a rapidly falling exponential.
Estimate the exponential part of the dependence of Γ on T .
p
Solution. (a) We have v = 2E/m, so
r
2r1 2m
t= = r1 .
v E
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The second turning point r2 satisfies E = α/r2 . Thus, the WKB phase is
i r2 i√
Z r α Z r2 r
r2
θ= 2m − E dr = 2mE − 1 dr.
ℏ r1 r ℏ r1 r
Since r1 ≪ r2 , we can simply set r1 = 0 in the integral and let u = r/r2 , leaving
i√
Z 1p
θ= 2mE r2 1/u − 1 du.
ℏ 0
(c) The timescale is approximately the time between collisions, divided by the probability of
escape per collision, r r !
2m πα 2m
τ ∼ te2iθ ∼ r1 exp − .
E ℏ E
(d) The integrand is the exponential of a quantity that quickly risesp and then falls, which means
almost all of the integral’s value comes from the region where − Eg /E −E/kB T is minimized.
1/3
Carrying out the differentiating, this corresponds to E ∼ Eg (kB T )2/3 . Plugging this back
1/3
in, we find the integrand is of order e−(Eg /kB T ) near these energies, so
1/3
Γ ∼ e−(Eg /kB T ) .
This general idea for treating sharply peaked integrals is called Laplace’s method.
[3] Problem 3. Consider the process by which an electron absorbs a single photon, e− + γ → e− .
(a) Show that this process is forbidden by energy-momentum conservation. By time reversal,
emission of a single photon should be forbidden as well. This is quite puzzling, since we already
know of many processes where something like absorption or emission seems to happen.
(b) Can an electron in an isolated atom absorb a single photon? If so, why doesn’t the reasoning
in part (a) work? If not, how can atoms absorb photons at all, as described in X1?
(c) Can isolated nuclei emit single photons? If so, why doesn’t the reasoning in part (a) work? If
not, how can gamma decay occur?
(d) Can isolated electrons absorb or emit classical electromagnetic radiation? If so, why doesn’t
the reasoning in part (a) work? If not, how can Thomson scattering (covered in E7) happen?
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Solution. (a) Let c = 1 and consider the reference frame where the electron was initially at rest
with mass m. After the collision with the photon with energy and momentum equal to Eγ ,
the electron will have energy m + Eγ and momentum Eγ . However, since E 2 = p2 + m2 , we
get m2 + 2Eγ m + Eγ2 = Eγ2 + m2 , reducing to 2Eγ m = 0, which is a contradiction (neither the
mass of an electron nor the energy of the photon is 0).
(b) Yes, an electron in an atom can absorb a photon. The issue in part (a) is that to absorb a
photon, the rest mass of the system absorbing must increase (which doesn’t happen for a lone
electron). When an electron is orbiting an atom, it has potential energy associated with its
interaction with the nucleus, and when it absorbs a photon, the electron jumps to a higher
energy state, which increases the rest mass-energy of the atom.
(c) Yes, when the nuclei breaks apart, the potential energy from nuclear interactions, which will
reduce the total rest mass of the nucleus, which allows for the release of a photon while
conserving momentum and energy.
(d) No, this process is impossible, because the same relativistic kinematics arguments hold whether
the radiation is classical or not. But it isn’t in contradiction with Thomson scattering, which
is the classical analogue of e− + γ → e− + γ. (Note that whenever we talked about the
absorption of electromagnetic radiation, it was in the context of electrons inside matter, where
the matter can absorb the excess momentum.)
Idea 4
Radioactive decay is a memoryless process: in an infinitesimal time interval dt, any nucleus
has a probability λ dt of decaying, regardless of its previous history. As a result, the number
of radioactive nuclei falls exponentially as
N (t) = N0 e−λt .
The activity A(t) is the rate of decay events, and also falls exponentially,
A(t) = A0 e−λt .
[3] Problem 4. This problem tests your understanding of memoryless processes. Below are several
plausible ways to measure τ .
(a) We start a stopwatch at noon and stop it when the next decay happens, giving t1 .
(b) We have an intern watch the sample continuously, then at noon, ask them how long it was
since the last decay, giving t2 .
(c) We have an intern watch the sample continuously, then at noon, ask them how long it was
since the last decay. We then set our stopwatch so that t = 0 when that decay happened, and
stop the stopwatch when the next decay happens, giving t3 .
(d) We continuously watch the sample, start a stopwatch when the first decay happens, then stop
it when the next decay happens, giving t4 .
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Kevin Zhou Physics Olympiad Handouts
Solution. (a) The probability of decay in a time interval is dt/τ , so the probability of not decaying
is (1 − dt/τ ). After many time intervals, the probability that a decay still hasn’t occured is
(1 − dt/τ )N ≈ eN log(1−dt/τ ) = e−t/τ , so the probability of a decay occurring
R ∞ after time t in an
interval dt is P (t)dt = e −t/τ dt/τ . Thus the average value of this, τ1 = 0 tP (t)dt, is (using
parts to integrate)
1 ∞ −t/τ
Z Z ∞
τ1 = e tdt = e−t/τ dt = τ.
τ 0 0
Which is the mean lifetime, so τ1 = τ .
(c) We want to find the expected value of the time interval t3 = t1 + t2 . Since ⟨t3 ⟩ = ⟨t1 + t2 ⟩ =
⟨t1 ⟩ + ⟨t2 ⟩, we see that τ3 = τ1 + τ2 = 2τ .
[2] Problem 5 (Krane 12.37). A radioactive sample contains N0 atoms at time t = 0. It is observed
that N1 radioactive atoms remain at time t1 and then decay by time t2 , N2 remain at t2 and then
decay by time t3 , and so on. Show that if many observations are made, then τ can be measured as
1 X
τ= Ni ti .
N0
i
Solution. N (t) should follow N (t) = N0 e−t/τ , so dN (t)/dt = −N (t)/τ . Thus the number of atoms
that decay between time ti and ti+1 , Ni , will be about Ni = (ti+1 − ti )dN (ti )/dt = (ti+1 − ti )N (t)/τ
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as the number of measurements are large. With smaller time intervals, this can be seen as Ni =
N (t)dt/τ . Thus looking at the expression N10 i Ni ti gives
P
Z ∞
1 ∞ −t/τ
Z
1 X 1 dt
Ni ti ≈ N (t) t= e tdt.
N0 N0 0 τ τ 0
i
This integral can be evaluated with parts (differentiating t and integrating e−t/τ dt),
1 ∞ −t/τ
Z Z ∞
e tdt = e−t/τ dt = τ,
τ 0 0
Example 2
Radium can be found in trace quantities throughout the Earth, and has a half-life of 1620
years. Suppose that there is currently 1 kg of radium on the Earth. Then extrapolating
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backwards, there was 24.5×10 /1620 kg of radius on the Earth when it was formed, which is
greater than the mass of the observable universe! What’s wrong with this calculation?
Solution
Nuclear decays don’t happen in isolation; there are entire networks of nuclear decay chains.
Radium decays quickly, but it is also constantly produced by the decay of other isotopes,
which have much longer half-lives.
[3] Problem 8 (PPP 190). Part of the series of isotopes produced by the decay of thorium-232, along
with the corresponding half-lives, is given below:
Thorium-232 and thorium-228 in equilibrium are extracted from an ore and purified by a chemical
process. Sketch the form of the variation in the number of atoms of radon-220 you would expect to
be present in this material over a (logarithmic) range from 10−3 to 103 years.
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Kevin Zhou Physics Olympiad Handouts
It rises at first due to the Radon-224 from the Thorium-228 in the initial sample, which will
then decay away before Radon-228 from Thorium-232 plays a significant role. After some time, the
effectively “infinite” bank of Thorium-232 (since it’s half life is much longer than 103 years) will
“fill up” all the parts of the chain when the Radon-228 starts contributing to the Thorium-228 stock,
and the equilibrium amount of Radon-220 will be reached and kept until after around 1010 years.
2 Nuclear Processes
Example 3: PTD 45
Heavy nuclei can decay if struck by a neutron, releasing lighter nuclei and several more
neutrons in the process. If each decay event causes, on average, more than one other decay
event, then a runaway chain reaction occurs, causing a nuclear explosion. This happens
in samples of mass greater than a given “critical mass”. If the sample can be compressed,
roughly how does the critical mass depend on density?
Solution
Let the sample have radius r, and let the cross-section of collision between neutrons and
heavy nuclei be σ. Then for small r, the probability that a produced neutron will collide
with another nucleus before exiting the sample is
p ∼ nσr
where n is the number density of nuclei. Critical mass is achieved when this reaches some
fixed threshold value, which means rcrit ∝ 1/n ∝ 1/ρ. The critical mass is thus
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mcrit ∝ ρrcrit ∝ 1/ρ2 .
Early nuclear weapons worked on the so-called implosion method, where a conventional
explosive was used to compress a sphere of radioactive material.
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Kevin Zhou Physics Olympiad Handouts
[1] Problem 9. Nuclear reactions can occur when nuclei are collided. Find the missing particle in
these reactions.
(a) 4 He + 14 N → 17 O +
(b) 9 Be + 4 He → 12 C +
(c) 27 Al + 4 He → n +
(d) 12 C + → 13 N + n
Solution. (a) 4 He + 14 N → 17 O + p
(b) 9 Be + 4 He → 12 C + n
(c) 27 Al + 4 He → n + 30 P
(d) 12 C + 2 H → 13 N + n
In practice, many nuclear and particle physics problems boil down to “optimal collision” problems
as you saw in R2, so we’ll avoid repeating them.
01W
The following problems concern nuclear fusion processes in stars, an important topic.
[3] Problem 11. USAPhO 2010, problem A4. This covers the proton-proton chain in our Sun.
[2] Problem 12. In larger stars, energy is also produced by the CNO cycle. We start with a population
of 12 C, in an environment containing many protons. You are given that 13 N and 15 O quickly undergo
β + decay, and that when 15 N is bombarded by a proton, the reaction
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N + 1 H → 12 C + 4 He
occurs. Write out the steps of the CNO cycle and find the net reaction.
Solution. Since we start with a lot of 12 C and protons, what’s going to happen is that they collide.
Letting 13 N and 15 O undergo immediate β + decay and continuing the proton bombardment will
give the following steps:
12
C + 1 H → 13 N.
13
N → 13 C + e+ + νe .
13
C + 1 H → 14 N.
14
N + 1 H → 15 O.
15
O → 15 N + e+ + νe .
15
N + 1 H → 12 C + 4 He.
Now eliminating all the “cycled” atoms will get a net reaction of
4 1 H → 4 He + 2e+ + 2νe .
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Idea 5
A very basic model for the fission of large nuclei is the liquid drop model. We suppose the
protons and neutrons are packed with uniform density; thus, the volume is proportional to
A, the surface area to A2/3 , and the radius to A1/3 . The binding energy of the nucleus has
several contributions:
• Each nucleon is bound to the others by the strong nuclear force. This force is short-
ranged, so the binding energy for each nucleon is only due to its neighbors, not on how
large the nucleus as a whole is, so it is proportional to A.
• There is a negative contribution scaling as −A2/3 because nucleons at the surface don’t
have neighbors on one side.
• There is another negative contribution scaling as −Z 2 /A1/3 due to the Coulomb repulsion
between protons. This scales quadratically with Z because the electromagnetic force is
long-ranged, so every proton interacts with every other one.
• Depending on the sophistication of the model, there can be other terms added, whose
origin can only be understood through quantum mechanics.
[3] Problem 13. INPhO 2014, problem 7. This is an instructive general application of the liquid drop
01T
model. The official solutions are already on the page, so you can check your work as you go.
[4] Problem 14. IPhO 1997, problem 2. This applies the liquid drop model to nuclear stability.
You can find a few more exercises on the liquid drop model in part A of IPhO 2023, problem 2,
though I think the above problems are enough to get the general idea.
(c) Which particles make up most of what you see in the everyday world?
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(b) Photon/gluon (massless), electron neutrino, muon neutrino, tau neutrino, electron, up quark,
down quark, strange quark, muon, charm quark, tau, bottom quark, W boson, Z boson, Higgs
boson, top quark.
(d) Gluons mediate the strong interaction, which affects quarks and gluons.
(e) W/Z bosons mediate the weak interaction, which affects quarks and leptons (the electron,
muon, tau, and corresponding neutrinos).
[3] Problem 16 (Griffiths 1.19). Your roommate is a chemistry major. She knows all about protons,
neutrons, and electrons, and she sees them in action every day in the laboratory. But she is skeptical
when you tell her about positrons, muons, neutrinos, pions, quarks, and intermediate vector bosons.
Explain to her why each of these play no direct role in chemistry.
Solution. Positrons will annihilate after contacting electrons, muons are unstable and decay in a
few microseconds, neutrinos are too small and have no charge so they’re too elusive to be detected,
pions are even more unstable than muons, quarks are locked inside protons and neutrons (they
won’t exist on their own since they’ll be unstable that way), and the bosons have a half life of
around 3 × 10−25 s.
Olympiad questions about particle colliders boil down to questions from E4, E7, and R2, so they
01^
should be fairly straightforward if you know the principles.
[3] Problem 17. USAPhO 2024, problem B1. Analyzing the collision rate in a muon collider
01h
using relativistic kinematics and dynamics.
[5] Problem 18. IPhO 2016, problem 3. This problem is about the physics of the LHC. Record
01h
your answers on the official answer sheet.
[5] Problem 19. IPhO 2018, problem 2. This problem covers LHC data analysis in more depth.
Remark
Now that you know the basics, can you tell the difference between the titles of real high
energy physics papers, and randomly generated ones? Test your knowledge here!
4 Atomic Physics
There’s not too much about atomic physics that can come up, because most quantitative results
beyond the Bohr model need the full machinery of quantum mechanics. However, if you’re given the
atomic energy levels in advance, there’s a bit of physics you can do with the resulting transitions.
Idea 6
Electrons in isolated atoms can spontaneously fall from energy level E1 to E0 , releasing a
photon of frequency ω = (E1 − E0 )/ℏ. Thus, since energy levels are discrete, light from such
atoms will have a sharply peaked spectrum (i.e. frequency dependence). Since every atom
has its own characteristic discrete energy levels, careful investigation of the spectrum can
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identify them.
Remark
If you like Olympiad number theory, you might want to chew on the following puzzle: in the
hydrogen atom, it’s possible that a transition from energy level n → m emits a photon of the
same frequency as some other transition n′ → m′ . How can you find all of the (n, m, n′ , m′ )
for which this is true? The solution is given here.
[3] Problem 20. In this problem, we discuss how atomic physicists observe atomic energy levels.
(a) The discrete frequencies (E1 − E0 )/ℏ observed in the spectra are called “spectral lines”. Why
are they called lines? (Hint: if you were a 19th century physicist, how would you sort light by
frequency in the first place?)
Ideally, each spectral line has zero width. However, in practice, isolated atoms emit radiation
in a range of frequencies centered about each spectral line. For concreteness, we’ll consider the
sodium doublet, a spectral line in sodium vapor which corresponds to yellow light with wavelength
λ = 589 nm. (Why specifically sodium vapor?)
(b) One contribution to spectral line width is the energy-time uncertainty principle: if an excited
state survives for time ∆t, then the resulting emitted energy must have a spread ∆E∆t ≳ ℏ.
In the case of the sodium doublet, the lifetime is 16 ns. Estimate the spread in frequencies
∆λ due to this “lifetime broadening”.
(c) Another contribution to spectral line width is Doppler broadening: when a gas of atoms is
at a nonzero temperature, the atomic motion causes the frequencies to be changed by the
Doppler effect. Estimate the resulting spread in frequencies ∆λ at T = 1000 K. (You can
consult the tables in appendix D of Krane.)
(d) The spectrum of the Sun has a rather different form. Instead of having radiation at only a
few frequencies, it has radiation at almost all frequencies, except for a few frequencies where
the amount of radiation decreases. Why?
Solution. (a) The spectra of light can be observed through the dispersion of light, where we a
band of colors in increasing (or decreasing) wavelength. When discrete frequencies are emitted
or absorbed, we notice one particular wavelength emitted or absorbed, which will make a
colored or dark line in the spectrum. It looks like this:
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ℏ λ2
∆λ = λ2 = ≈ 10−5 nm.
hc∆t 2πc∆t
(c) Velocities from thermal motion is much less than c, so we can use ∆f = f v/c. We can estimate
1 2 3 −26 kg. This gives
2 mv = 2 kB T , where the mass of a sodium atom is m = 3.8 × 10
r
2 ∆f λ 3kB T
∆λ = λ = λv/c = ≈ 2 × 10−3 nm.
c c m
(d) The electrons in the Sun are stripped off the nuclei because it’s hot, so they emit a continuous
spectrum of blackbody radiation. But the atoms in the cooler atmosphere of the Sun will
absorb certain frequencies, which will create an absorption spectrum.
Idea 7
Conversely, when an atom is placed in an electromagnetic field of frequency ω, it
may absorb a photon to go from energy level E0 to E1 . The presence of such a field
also increases the rate of decay from E1 down to E0 via stimulated emission, as we saw in T1.
Finally, an electron can be ejected from an atom entirely by absorbing a photon in the
photoelectric effect; if the initial energy was −E, then the final kinetic energy of the electron
is ℏω − E.
01h
Solution. See the official solutions here.
[5] Problem 25. IPhO 2009, problem 2. This relatively straightforward problem covers the neat
application of Doppler laser cooling, a technique for creating ultracold gases that won the 1997
01h
Nobel prize. (For a very similar problem, see APhO 2006, problem 1.)
[5] Problem 26. IdPhO 2020, problem 3. Another relatively straightforward problem focusing
on chirped pulse amplification, which won the 2018 Nobel prize.
Remark
In a conventional refrigerator, cooling the inside requires the heating of a hot reservoir,
which is usually a metal coil located at the back of the fridge. But in Doppler laser cooling,
a sample of atoms is cooled without a hot reservoir heating up! This is actually allowed by
the second law of thermodynamics because the entropy of the photons goes up. They begin
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by coming in by a definite direction (the laser beam) and come out in a random direction,
so the entropy associated with their orientation increases.
To reach even lower temperatures, one uses the technique of evaporative cooling. The atoms
are held in place by a trap, which you can think of as a static, attractive potential U (r) ∝ r2 .
If the trap has finite height, then only the most energetic atoms can escape. The remaining
atoms have less energy on average, and hence are colder, just like how evaporating sweat
cools people down. This doesn’t violate the second law of thermodynamics because the atoms
that escape the trap end up in some random place in the lab, so the entropy associated with
their position increases.
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