Lecture 7

Cross Sections and Reaction Rates

• cross section
• thermonuclear rates
• astrophysical S-factor
• partial lifetimes

Overview of Particle Physics

Animatter

• properties
• positrons in the Galactic center, and recent update

Elementary Particle Physics in a Nutshell

• Conservation laws
• Fundamental particles
  • hadrons = composites of quarks
    (cf. drinking song from Finnegan's Wake )
    PDG listings for baryons, mesons
    hot off the presses: pentaquark(!?!)
  • leptons: PDG listings
• Fundamental interactions
  force-carrying bosons: PDG listings
• Relativistic kinematics