MAGNETISM OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES

From the Preface

The book contains a fairly detailed though, of course, incomplete reference list, which may help to satisfy the reader who wishes to investigate anyone question in its entirety. The book opens with a review of the well-known aspects of magnetism of the elementary particle that was discovered first, the electron (Chapter 1). This is followed by a brief summary of data concerning the magnetic properties of atomic electron shells (Chapter 2). Chapter 3 is devoted to the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei and their constituent nucleons-the proton and the neutron. It also contains a description of the most important experimental techniques of determining the magnetic moments of nuclei and nucleons (detailed tables of measured magnetic moments are given in the Appendix at the end of the book). Chapter 4 deals with the problem of the anomalous magnetic moment of an elementary particle and with the relation of this problem to the quark’s hypothesis. Chapter 5 offers a fairly detailed description of the situation arising from the Dirac hypothesis concerning the magnetic monopole. Finally, Chapter 6 gives a very brief presentation of non-linear magnetic effects in strong fields. As has been noted, the author did not pursue the goal of giving a rigorous mathematical elaboration of theory or a comprehensive review of experimental facts. He confined himself to outlining the general situation, stressing the physical essence of the described phenomena. It is the author’s hope that this book will find many readers among physicists and specialists in related branches of the natural sciences and will help them in their practical research.