The purpose of the CLXIX Course of the “Enrico Fermi” Varenna School was to give an account of recent advances and new perspectives in the study of nuclei far from stability both from the experimental and the theoretical point of view.
Experimental studies of exotic nuclei are currently being performed in several laboratories and new facilities with high-intensity beams are either just completed, or approved and under construction or in their planning stages. At the School an overview of several facilities, RIKEN-RIBF, CERN-ISOLDE, GANIL-SPIRAL2 and GSI-FAIR was given, as well as of the planned FRIB facility in the U.S., with the aim of presenting to the students what will be the experimental scenario in the next 10 years.
The bulk of the School was devoted to nuclear structure models and their derivation from the basic nucleon-nucleon interaction. Three models were extensively discussed: the shell model, the interacting boson model and the cluster model.
In recent years, considerable advance has been made in ab initio theories of nuclei, especially of light nuclei. These were also presented at the School thus providing a comprehensive view of the present status of nuclear structure theory.
Another aspect that was discussed was the occurrence of dynamic symmetries and super-symmetries in nuclei, including the newly suggested “critical” symmetries which occur in transitional nuclei when the shape changes from spherical to deformed.
Nuclei far from stability are of particular importance for astrophysics, especially for the r-process. Nuclear Astrophysics was reviewed in detail, including a discussion of energy generation in stars and nucleo-synthesis of elements.
Another aspect of nuclear structure physics is its role in understanding fundamental processes, such as electroweak processes. For example, nuclei offer the opportunity of measuring the neutrino mass through the observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay. A review of the experimental and theoretical situation for double-beta decay both with and without neutrinos was presented at the School.
The main lectures were complemented by seminars on issues of current interest in nuclear structure, some of them being given by students. The students were also given the opportunity to make use of some of the computer programs needed in nuclear structure model calculations.
This CLXIX Course was dedicated to Renato Angelo Ricci on the occasion of his 80th birthday. It was a pleasure to celebrate this joyful event, which gave us the opportunity to recognize the many contributions of Renato to the field of Nuclear Physics, especially those to the structure of fp-shell nuclei.
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN). We also express our special thanks to Barbara Alzani, Lorenzo Corengia, and Marta Pigazzini for their very efficient and friendly help during the whole School.
A. Covello and F. Iachello