Magnetic Breakdown in Crystals (Cohen & Falicov, pp. 231-234 WITH Evidence for Charge Independence in Medium Weight Nuclei (Anderson & Wong, pp. 250-252) in Physical Review Letters 7, No. 6, September 15, 1961

New York: The American Physical Society, 1961. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION IN ORIGINAL WRAPS OF THE FIRST PROPOSAL OF THE CONCEPT OF MAGNETIC BREAKDOWN (MB). ALSO, FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST PROOF OF THE VALIDITY OF THE ISOSPIN SYMMETRY, ANDERSON & WONG'S DEMONSTRATION OF EXCITED ISOBARIC ANALOGUE STATES IN MEDIUM & HEAVY NUCLEI.

The concept of magnetic breakdown (MB) "was first proposed [in this paper] by Cohen and Falicov to explain the very high frequency oscillation (the so-called giant orbit) observed by Priestley in his pulse-field De Haas-Van Alphen investigation of magnesium" (Progress in Low Temperature Physics, 5, 235). Their work made clear that the effects of MB are highly likely to appear in experiments involving the electronic band structure (or interbank structure) of many metals and should be anticipated.

"Since [their discovery] the concept of MB has been applied to many experimental situation involving the dynamics of electrons in magnetic fields. The effect of MB is to alter the topology (or character) of electron (or hole) orbits by a tunneling mechanism that, probabilistically, couples orbits together. Its importance lies in the extremely sensitive dependence of these coupling probabilities to magnetic field strength and orientation" (Freericks and Falicov, PR 39, 9, 39).

ANDERSON & WONG: "In nuclear physics and particle physics, isospin (isotopic spin, isobaric spin) is a quantum number related to the strong interaction" (Wikipedia). In 1932, Heisenberg introduced isospin - the first dynamical symmetry in physics -- to explain symmetries of the newly discovered neutron. His hypothesis, however, was entirely reliant on the equivalence between the p-p and n-n two-body interactions. This paper by Anderson and Wong was the first experimental proof of the validity of Heisenberg's isospin symmetry; it fully documents their discovery of "narrow and well-defined isobaric analog states or isobaric analog resonances in heavy nuclei" (Cerny, Nuclear Spectroscopy, 90).

Anderson and Wong's work showed "that isospin is not only a valid and good quantum number in light nuclei, but that it is also a good and useful quantum number in heavy nuclei... In particular, this means that the low-lying levels in heavy nuclei have small admixtures of the wrong isospin components... Because of their work, all nuclear states can now be labeled with isospin quantum numbers (T, Tz)" (ibid). CONDITION & DETAILS: First edition in original wraps. New York: The American Physical Society. Quarto (10.25 x 7.50 inches; 256 x 188mm). Exceptionally and clean inside and out. Fine condition.