This book provides the first graduate-level, self-contained introduction to recent developments that lead to the formulation of the configuration-interaction approach for open quantum systems, the Gamow shell model, which provides a unitary description of quantum many-body system in different regimes of binding, and enables the unification in the description of nuclear structure and reactions. The Gamow shell model extends and generalizes the phenomenologically successful nuclear shell model to the domain of weakly-bound near-threshold states and resonances, offering a systematic tool to understand and categorize data on nuclear spectra, moments, collective excitations, particle and electromagnetic decays, clustering, elastic and inelastic scattering cross sections, and radiative capture cross sections of interest to astrophysics. The approach is of interest beyond nuclear physics and based on general properties of quasi-stationary solutions of the Schrödinger equation – so-called Gamow states. For the benefit of graduate students and newcomers to the field, the quantum-mechanical fundamentals are introduced in some detail. The text also provides a historical overview of how the field has evolved from the early days of the nuclear shell model to recent experimental developments, in both nuclear physics and related fields, supporting the unified description. The text contains many worked examples and several numerical codes are introduced to allow the reader to test different aspects of the continuum shell model discussed in the book.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of some key developments in the understanding of the nucleon-nucleon interaction and nuclear many-body theory. The main problems at the level of meson exchange physics have largely been solved, and we now have an effective nucleon-nucleon interaction, pioneered in a renormalization group formalism by several of us at Stony Brook and our colleagues at Naples, which is nearly universally accepted as the unique low-momentum interaction that includes all experimental information to date.Our present understanding of these issues is based on a multi-step development in which different scientific insights and a wide range of physical and mathematical methodologies fed into each other. It is best appreciated by looking at the ‘steps along the way’, starting with the pioneering work of Brueckner and his collaborators that was just as necessary and important as the insightful improvements to Brueckner's theory by Hans Bethe and his students. Moving on from there, microscopic methods for nuclear structure calculations using the Brueckner G-matrix, and later low-momentum nucleon interactions, were developed and applied. With their influential 1967 paper, Brown and Kuo prepared the effective theory that allowed the description of nuclear properties directly from the underlying nucleon-nucleon interaction. Later, the addition of ‘Brown-Rho scaling’ to the one-boson-exchange model deepened the understanding of nuclear matter saturation, carbon-14 dating and the structure of neutron stars.

This book is a unique collection of reviews that share a common topic, emergent phenomena in atomic nuclei, while revealing the multifaceted nature of the subject, from quarks to heavy nuclei. It tells an amazing story of a decades-long journey of trials and successes, up to present days, with the aim to understand the vast array of experimental data and the fundamentals of strongly interacting fermions. The emphasis is on discovering emergent orderly patterns amidst the overarching complexity of many-particle quantum-mechanical systems. Recent findings are discussed within an interesting framework: a combination of nuclear theory and experiment, of group theory and computational science, and of pivotal models of astonishing simplicity and state-of-the-art models empowered by supercomputers.A special theme resonates throughout the book: the important role of symmetries, exact and approximate, in exposing emergent features and guiding large-scale nuclear modeling. World-renowned experts offer their unique perspective on symmetries in the world of quarks and gluons, and that of protons and neutrons — from chiral symmetry, through spin-isospin and quasi-spin symmetries, to symplectic symmetry, — as well as on the emergent nature of nuclear collectivity, clustering, and pairing, viewed from spectroscopy, microscopic considerations, and first principles. The book provides an excellent foundation that allows researchers and graduate students in physics and applied mathematics to review the current status of the subject, and to further explore the research literature through exhaustive sets of references that also point to studies underpinned by similar techniques in condensed matter and atomic physics along with quantum information.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of some key developments in the understanding of the nucleon-nucleon interaction and nuclear many-body theory. The main problems at the level of meson exchange physics have been solved, and we have an effective field theory using a phenomenological interaction pioneered by Achim Schwenk and Scott Bogner, which is nearly universally accepted as a unique low-momentum interaction that includes all experimental data to date.This understanding is based on a multi-step development in which different scientific insights and a wide range of physical and mathematical methodologies fed into each other. It is best appreciated by looking at the different 'steps along the way', starting with the pioneering work of Brueckner and his collaborators that was just as necessary and important as the insightful masterly improvements to Brueckner's theory by Hans Bethe and his students. Moving on from there, the off-shell effects that bedeviled Bethe's work — which had resulted in the 1963 Reference Spectrum Method — were treated relatively accurately by introducing an energy gap between initial bound states and an intermediate state. With their influential 1967 paper, Brown and Kuo prepared the effective field theory. Later, the introduction of 'Brown-Rho scaling' deepened understanding of saturation in the many-body system and fed directly into recent work on carbon-14 dating.