Nuclear shell model

The nuclear shell model describes protons and neutrons as occupying quantized energy levels in an atomic nucleus. It explains nuclear magic numbers and many patterns in nuclear properties.

Nuclear spin: The total intrinsic angular momentum of an atomic nucleus. The shell model combines nucleon angular momenta to predict nuclear spin.
Nuclear potential: The effective interaction energy experienced by a nucleon inside a nucleus. Its shape determines the single-particle energy levels occupied in the model.
Maria Goeppert Mayer: A physicist who developed the nuclear shell model and shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics. Her work established the shell explanation of nuclear magic numbers.
Nuclear collective model: A framework describing nuclear motion through collective rotations and vibrations of many nucleons. It accounts for large-scale nuclear motion that a simple independent-particle picture misses.
Nuclear magnetic dipole moment: A measure of the magnetic field generated by a nucleus. Unpaired nucleons give shell-model predictions for nuclear magnetic moments.
Quantum number: A value that specifies a permitted state or conserved property in a quantum system. Quantum numbers label the nucleon states grouped into nuclear shells.
J. Hans D. Jensen: A German physicist who independently developed the nuclear shell model with Maria Goeppert Mayer. His parallel development revealed the role of strong spin–orbit coupling.
Liquid drop model: A model treating the nucleus as a charged fluid drop with bulk properties. It explains average binding and fission trends where shell details are less central.
Nuclear electric quadrupole moment: A measure of the departure of a nuclear charge distribution from spherical symmetry. Measured quadrupole moments test whether a shell-model state is spherical or deformed.
Angular momentum coupling: The quantum-mechanical combination of angular momenta into total angular momentum. Nucleon orbital and spin angular momenta combine to set shell-state properties.

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