the nucleus
We cannot talk about hyperfine interactions without discussing some properties of nuclei that go beyond the point charge. That’s what this first chapter will be about.
There are a few optional resources that can be useful. These are really optional resources: they do not belong to the core material of this course. Nevertheless, they might come in handy if you feel lost at some point due to a lack of background knowledge. Feel free to consult them when you need, but don’t feel bad about leaving them alone if you don’t need.
- A written summary of this chapter (‘the nucleus’) (thanks to former student Jeffrey De Rycke for making this).
- The relevant part of a course text that once was part of an older, offline version of this course (not updated). This part deals with multipole moments and explains the mathematical concept of a tensor. Tensors are not actively used in this course, yet if you know what they are you’ll see the link between multipole moments and tensors.
If you feel les familiar about tensors, then it’s worth looking at the Refreshers module for the page with a quick start on tensors (we’ll need this at several places throughout the course).
Feel free to suggest other background texts that can be added here.