The Highly Specialized Seminar on "Symmetries in Nuclear Structure", held in Erice, Italy, in March 2003, celebrated the career and the remarkable achievements of Francesco Iachello, on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Since the development of the interacting boson model in the early 1970s, the ideas of Iachello have provided a variety of frameworks for understanding collective behaviour in nuclear structure, founded on the concepts of dynamical symmetries and spectrum-generating algebras. The original ideas, which were developed for the description of atomic nuclei, have now been successfully extended to cover spectroscopic behaviour in other fields, such as molecular or hadronic spectra. More recently, the suggestion by Iachello of critical point symmetries to treat nuclei in shape/phase transitional regions has opened an exciting new front for both theoreticians and experimentalists.The talks presented at the meeting covered many of the most active forefront areas of nuclear structure as well as other fields where ideas of symmetries are being explored. Topics in nuclear structure included extensive discussions on dynamical symmetries, critical point symmetries, phase transitions, statistical properties of nuclei, supersymmetry, mixed symmetry states, shears bands, pairing and clustering in nuclei, shape coexistence, exotic nuclei, dipole modes, and astrophysics, among others. In addition, important sessions focused on talks by European laboratory directors (or their representatives) outlining prospects for nuclear structure, and the application of symmetry ideas to molecular phenomena. Finally, a special lecture by Nobel laureate Alex Mueller, on s and d wave symmetry in superconductors, presented a unique insight into an allied field.The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:* Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings� (ISTP� / ISI Proceedings)* Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)* CC Proceedings -- Engineering & Physical Sciences

The interacting boson-fermion model has become in recent years the standard model for the description of atomic nuclei with an odd number of protons and/or neutrons. This book describes the mathematical framework on which the interacting boson-fermion model is built and presents applications to a variety of situations encountered in nuclei. The book addresses both the analytical and the numerical aspects of the problem. The analytical aspect requires the introduction of rather complex group theoretic methods, including the use of graded (or super) Lie algebras. The first (and so far only) example of supersymmetry occurring in nature is also discussed. The book is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject and will appeal to both theoretical and experimental physicists. The large number of explicit formulas for level energies, electromagnetic transition rates and intensities of transfer reactions presented in the book provide a simple but detailed way to analyse experimental data. This book can also be used as a textbook for advanced graduate students.

These proceedings comprise the contents of a major international conference on Perspectives of the Interacting Boson Model. Occasioned by the 20th Anniversary of this model, and attended by approx. 130 scientists from 29 countries, the topics focused on current and future research, which relates to the IBM. This model has now become one of the standard approaches to nuclear structure and has helped usher in a renaissance in that field and a new, unified perspective that focuses on dynamical symmetries and the key role of the valence nucleons. The algebraic approach fostered by the model is being extended to other fields, including nuclear reactions, molecular physics and baryon structure.

This volume comprises an important collection of papers dedicated to the problems of producing and investigating nuclei far from the line of stability. Together, they discuss the latest results on the production and study of the properties of the lightest to the heaviest nuclei as well as the current plans for future joint investigations in the field of exotic nuclei.The contributions from well-known experts in the field were presented at the International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei, jointly organized by four scientific centers where this field is actively pursued: Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions JINR (Dubna), RIKEN (Japan), GANIL (France), and GSI (Germany).Unique techniques for the synthesis and investigation of the properties of exotic nuclei are being developed together with the realization of large accelerator projects. The creation of these new radioactive ion beam factories requires substantial investment, and they can only be built with the support of international collaborations.

Medium heavy nuclei with mass number A=60-90 exhibit a variety of complex collective properties, provide a laboratory for double beta decay studies, and are a region of all heavy N=Z nuclei. This book discusses these three aspects of nuclear structure using Deformed Shell Model and the Spin-Isospin Invariant Interacting Boson Model naturally generated by fermionic SO(8) symmetry. Using these two models, the book describes properties of medium heavy nuclei with mass number A=60-90. It provides a good reference for future nuclear structure experiments using radioactive ion beam (RIB) facilities. Various results obtained by the authors and other research groups are also explained in this book.

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This book gives an account of the properties of the interacting boson model.