The Department of Atomic and Nuclear Physics department provides lectures, seminars and laboratory classes in the following disciplines, as components of various degree programmes within the faculty: physics of the atom and of the molecule (3rd year, for all first degree programmes), nuclear physics and elementary particles ( 2nd semester of 3rd year and 1st semester of 4th year respectively, for all first degree programmes), as well as the laboratory work for three specialisations: atomic and molecular interactions, astrophysics, nuclear and elementary particle interactions (both for 4th year, Faculty of Physics), and Applied Nuclear Physics (4th and 5th years for Technological Physics). In addition, it provides courses in programming and numerical methods for the first and second years of all the faculty's degree programmes.
Master's degree and postgraduate study courses are offered in: atomic and molecular interactions, astrophysics, nuclear interactions and interactions of elementary particles, and applied nuclear physics. These courses train specialists in advanced areas of Physics, and some of them are unique in Romania.
The Faculty of Physics of the University of Bucharest is the only faculty in the country which provides, through optional courses in the fourth and fifth year and postgraduate courses, for specialisation in applied nuclear physics. The teaching staff in this area are recognised internationally for their research activities, and collaborate with prestigious institutions in the field (NEA DB Paris, IAEA Vienna, IRMM Geel, PTB Braunschweig, LNHB Saclay,etc.), and the training provided enables graduates to become excellent specialists in this domain: an increasingly important one nowadays, as the international community of nuclear physicists is confronted with the task of elaborating a new strategy for the re-launch of nuclear energy programmes, taking into consideration, as well as strictly economic factors, a global analysis of security problems, of the use of resources, of the storage and the treatment of radioactive waste, of the impact on the environment, of the risk of the nuclear weapons use, of public and operational doses, of the absence of carbon dioxide emissions, and of public and political support.
The content of the courses covers the range of knowledge required by a nuclear physics engineer, such as: experimental methods, data acquisition systems (detection and associated electronic); processing methods, calculation, simulation and evaluation; structure models and nuclear interaction, nuclear spectroscopy, fission reactions and nuclear fusion; applications of nuclear radiation, the physics of nuclear reactors, environmental radioactivity, dosimetry, radio-protection and nuclear management; calculus codes and nuclear databases.
Another area of specialisation which is unique in Romania is nuclear and elementary particle interactions. The teaching staff working in this domain have developed international collaborations with leading laboratories (IUCN-Dubna, CERN-Geneve, Brookhaven National Laboratory, KEK Tsukuba, RIKEN Tokyo, Jlab-USA etc.). The degree programme in this area leads to the title of Physicist.
A Master's degree programme of one and a half years is available in this field, responding both to Romania's interest in being involved in international research in this area and to students' interest in the field. The programme covers nuclear models and reaction mechanisms, symmetries and conservation laws in the physics of elementary particles, relativist nuclear physics, electrodynamics and quantic chromodynamics, cosmology and high energy physics, reactions of two and three bodies, the standard model, phase transitions in nuclear substance, states and non-conventional processes of the nuclear substance at high energies, reactions with heavy ions, hadron spectroscopy, experimental methods, data acquisition and elements of nuclear electronics, image processing in vizualising detectors and neuronal systems, dosimetry, radio-protection and radio-ecology.
Another specialisation direction offered by the Atomic and Nuclear Physics department is that of physics of the atom and the molecule and astrophysics. Again a degree in this specialisation leads to the title of Physicist. Here, too, a Master's degree programme is offered.
International collaborations in this field include those with the universities of Paris-South (Paris XI), Paris VI, The AMOLF Institute of Amsterdam, The Free University of Brussels etc.
The physics of the atom and of the molecule is to be regarded as a frontier science with major implications in biophysics, chemistry, biochemistry, the physics of the condensed state and the physics of materials, theoretical physics, astrophysics and cosmology, the physics of surfaces etc. New experimental methods of high resolution and sensitivity have been discovered.
Some of the most topical issues in contemporary physics and that are addressed include: the multiphonic and nonliniar processes in electromagnetic intense fields, atoms in the over-iced state, atomic traps and the behaviour of the isolated individual atoms in such traps, nonadiabatic and nonperturbative behaviour in high intensity fields, the study of unstable molecular clusters involved in Astrophysics, atomic and assisted molecular processes, surface processes etc.
These studies include also astrophysics, as most of the elementary processes of the cosmic space are related to atomic, molecular and nuclear systems. Beside this, the extraterrestrial space represents a sui generis laboratory for atomic and molecular processes that cannot be performed on Earth.
The main issues covered are: molecular interactions and systems, atomic and molecular models of analysis, spectroscopy of magnetic resonance, methods of calculus and models in the physics of the atom and of the molecule, atomic and molecular collisions, atoms and molecules in intense electromagnetic fields, surface atomic and molecular processes, astrophysics, the physics of the sun and of proximal space.
