Future Directions in Studies of Nuclei Far from Stability [antikvár]

NUCLEI FAR FROM STABILITY: PRESENT-FUTUREThe first international conference devoted to nuclei far from stability in Lysekil, Sweden in 1966, focused on the question of "Why and How to Study Nuclei Far From Stability." Its success in answering these questions is witnessed by the wealth of papers in the proceedings2'3 of the second and third international conferences on Nuclei Far From Stability in Leysin, Switzerland in 1970 and Cargese, Francé in 1976. The field has advanced to be one of the major frontiers in nuclear physics today.Since the 1976 Cargese conference, much work has been done both theoretically and experimentálly. In somé nuclear models, such as the interacting Boson model,^ one has even reached a stage of predicting the level structures of totally unexplored nuclei farther off the stability line. Especially significant in the planning of a symposium in 1979 is the construction of major new heavy ion accelerators in England, Francé, Germany, the Peoples Republic of China, the Soviet Union and the United States, each of them mounting major efforts to study nuclei far from stability. Alsó, the TRISTAN separator is now being set up at a higher flux reactor, and the large ISOLDE col 1aboration is opening new frontiers in their program through the use of high energy protons and 3He to induce fission of uránium and soon will have a 1 GeV 12C beam available for further expansion.Each of these new or improved facilities will open up many new doors to explore untrampled terrain in the mountains away from the valley of stability. The anticipátion of the new vistas of the nuclear terrain is in part based on such fascinating recent discoveries as shape coexistence in the light mass mercury isotopes5; the vanishing of the hg/2-h11/2 shell model gap at Z = 82 in the very light thai 1ium (Z = 81) and gold (Z = 79) nuclei which lie just below the lead (Z = 82) nuclei^; unexpectedly strong deformation in 100Sr (Ref. 7) and the beta delayed two neutron decay of nLi (Ref. 7).UNISOR scientists, as they reflected on the new opportunities to be opened to them by the new 25 MV tandem accelerator at the Holifield Heavy Ion Research Facility in 1980, felt that 1979 was an excellent time to bring together leading theoretical and experimentál groups to consider which new directions should be most vigoroulsly pursued to advance our understanding of nuclear structure. Thus a symposium to focus on Future Directions in Studies of Nuclei Far From Stability wasconceived as a specialized international symposium. To highlight the theme of the symposium, several leading nuclear structure theorists from different schools of thought were invited Lo share insights and suggest new directions, including even wild speculations based on their work. Another important part of the symposium was to be reports of new results, new facilities and new directions being planned by the various major experimentál groups in the field.