Majorana: From Atomic and Molecular, to Nuclear Physics

Majorana: from Atomic and Molecular, to Nuclear Physics

In the centennial of Ettore Majorana's birth (1906—1938?), we reexamine some aspects of his fundamental scientific production in atomic and molecular physics, including a not well known short communication. There, Majorana critically discusses Fermi's solution of the celebrated Thomas-Fermi equation for electron screening in atoms and positive ions. We argue that some of Majorana's seminal cont...

Majorana “spin-flip” and ultra-low temperature atomic physics

Majorana and Condensed Matter Physics

1. Spin Response and Universal Connection In [1], Majorana considered the coupling of spins to magnetic fields. The paper is brief, but it contains two ingenious ideas whose importance extends well beyond the immediate problem he treated, and should be part of every physicists’ toolkit. The first of those ideas, is that having solved the problem for spin 12 , one can deduce the solution for gen...

Quantum and semiclassical spin networks: from atomic and molecular physics to quantum computing and gravity

The mathematical apparatus of quantum–mechanical angular momentum (re)coupling, developed originally to describe spectroscopic phenomena in atomic, molecular, optical and nuclear physics, is embedded in modern algebraic settings which emphasize the underlying combinatorial aspects. SU(2) recoupling theory, involving Wigner’s 3nj symbols, as well as the related problems of their calculations, ge...

Alexander Dalgarno: From atomic and molecular physics to astronomy and aeronomy.

As Sir David Bates wrote in 1988, “There is no greater figure than Alex Dalgarno in the history of atomic-molecular-optical [AMO] physics, and its applications” (1). Prof. Alexander Dalgarno (Harvard) passed away peacefully on April 9, 2015 at age 87 in the presence of his long-term companion, Fern Creelan. During a career spanning 60 years, Alex produced about 750 publications covering a vast ...