Physics of Radioactive Beams

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book
Review: Bertulani et al have compiled all of the relative and essential physics of radioactive beams in such a way that is easy to understand. This text also contained graphs that illustrated points and made them much clearer. The pictures of experiments, although somewhat outdated, also were helpful in the learning process. This is an excellent text for any advanced course of study related to nuclear physics.

Rating:
Summary: Physics of Radioactive Beams
Review: I liked this book. The material was fairly well-organized, and very clearly presented. Many quantum mechanics and nuclear physics basic notions were presented to guide the reader to understand the physics of rare nuclear isotopes.
Anyone who has had an introduction to modern physics can handle this book. It is very readable and presents much of the history as it covers the theoretical ideas. Also I thought it had a very good looking cover, and the supplements are very useful for guidance.

Rating:
Summary: missed opportunity
Review: The book "Physics of Radioactive Beams" by Bertulani, Hussein, and Münzenberg covers one of the thriving fields of nuclear structure and reaction physics, namely unstable ion beams. Due to the immense progress made in this field during the past decade, there is (still) no good textbook available that gives a thorough introduction into the field. Unfortunately, "Physics of Radioactive Beams" does not improve on this deficiency.

The book is very theoretical, which is not a problem by itself, but as motivating thoughts and fundamental definitions used in one of the abundant equations are missing, it becomes very hard to understand for a non-expert. There are, of course, a few exceptions, such as the first and very last chapter of the book that uses more of an experimentalist's approach. From the ordering of the chapters and topics discussed it is difficult to understand what the authors want to convey in a particular chapter. Part of the material is moved to "supplements" which are, however, not indicated as such in the table of contents, and often references in the regular text are made to supplement sections. Thus it is difficult to separate more important information, helpful definitions and results from the mass of unimportant calculations that appear to fill a large fraction of the book.

The book might have its place on the shelves of experienced nuclear physicists working in the field (both theory and experiment) that want to look up a reference or check some details in their favorite reaction model, but as a textbook even for most graduate students it is - all in all - a missed opportunity. Interested readers should rather invest in recent review articles and have a look at the original literature.