This volume presents five pedagogical articles spanning frontier developments in contemporary nuclear physics ranging from the physics of a single nucleon to nucleosynthesis in the Big Bang. Although the objectives of Advances in Nuclear Physics have been and will continue to be quite distinct from those of conventional conference proceedings, the articles in this volume are carefully edited and expanded manuscripts based on an outstanding series of lectures delivered at the VI J. A. Swieca Summer School in Brazil. Starting at the smallest scale, the first article by Dan Olof Riska addresses realistic chiral symmetric models of the nucleon. Since the analytic tools are not yet developed to solve nonperturbative QCD directly, significant effort has been devoted in recent years to the development of models which incorporate and are constrained by the approximate chiral symmetry manifested in QCD. This article provides a clear introduction to chiral symmetry and the Skyrme model, and discusses the Skyrme model’s relation to the chiral bag model, its extensions, and its application to nucleons and hyperons.

This book of proceedings contains contributions of about 30 prominent scientists who were or are associated with the awardee, Prof J B Natowitz, and are working in the field of heavy-ion reactions.The papers contained in this book represent an up-to-date overview of the most interesting topics related to the formation and decay of hot nuclei and to nuclear dynamics.

The proceedings present the most recent results of experimental and theoretical nuclear spectroscopy, revealing the effects of rapid rotation and thermal fluctuations on the shapes and superfluid properties of a wide range of atomic nuclei. Unstable and novel shapes are emphasized, e.g. super-and hyper-deformed shapes, and triaxial quadrupole and octupole shapes (both static and vibrational). Theoretical treatments are given in terms of a variety of mean field models, as well as the Fermion Dynamical Symmetry Model and the Interacting Boson Model. New experimental methods of gamma-ray spectroscopy are discussed, including fluctuation analysis and energy-ordered gamma ray spectroscopy.

Over the last decade one of the most active areas of research in nuclear physics has been the study of systems of nucleons in various dynamical situations. Heavy-ion collisions at beam energies in the range 30-150 MeV per nucleon, where subnucleaonic degrees of freedom can be considered as frozen, allow such systems to be studied in detail. Nuclear

Intermediate-Energy Nuclear Physics is devoted to discussing the interaction between hadrons with nuclei, which leads to the emission of particles during an intranuclear cascade and subsequent decay of a highly excited residual nucleus. Experimental data and the methods and results of the calculation of probabilities of various processes initiated by intermediate-energy hadrons in nuclei are set forth and discussed. The potential for obtaining information on the structure and properties of nuclei by comparing experimental data with theoretical results is analyzed. New issues, such as analytic methods for the solution of kinetic equations describing the cascade, nuclear absorption of hadrons from bound states of hadronic atoms, interaction of antinucleons with nuclei, multifragmentation of highly excited residual nuclei, and polarization phenomena, are discussed in detail. The book also demonstrates hadron-nucleus interactions that bridge the gap between low-energy and heavy ions physics. It is an interesting reference for nuclear physicists and other researchers interested in the analysis of problems associated with the evolution of the early (hot) universe, neutron stars and supernovas, after-burning of radioactive waste in nuclear energy installations, and electronuclear energy breeding.

This volume gives a detailed account of the current trends in the interface areas of medium and high energy nuclear physics. Special stress is given to topics like chiral models, relativistic models, hot nuclei, quark-gluon plasma and other reactions with non-nucleonic degrees of freedom. The articles present the state-of-the-art research in these areas and also suggest unsolved problems which will form the main thrust of future research work in nuclear physics.

This proceedings volume includes 66 papers on the latest developments in heavy ion collisions, the synthesis of new elements and nuclei far from stability, nuclear structure, physics with radioactive beams, and applications of heavy ion beams.

Planetary nebulae are the classic subject of astrophysics. The physical pro cesses occurring in this highly ionized gaseous medium, the formation of emis sion lines in clearly specified conditions, the continuous emission extending from the far ultraviolet up to infrared and radio frequencies, the generation of exotic forms of radiation predicted by atomic physics, along with methods for deciphering the observed spectra and detecting physical and kinematic parameters of the radiating medium, etc. - all these problems form the solid foundations of the physical theory of gaseous nebulae. They are an essential part of the arsenal of powerful tools and concepts without which one cannot imagine understanding and interpreting the enormous diversity of processes taking place in the Universe - in gaseous envelopes surrounding the stars of various classes, from cool dwarfs and flare stars up to hot supergiants, as well as in stellar chromospheres and coronae, in atmospheres of unstable and anomalous stars, in circumstellar clouds and gaseous shells born in nova and supernova explosions, in diffuse nebulae and the interstellar medium, in interacting binary systems, in galaxies with emission lines, in quasars, etc. The last thirty years have seen a turning-point in our knowledge concern ing the very nature of planetary nebulae (PNs). The radio emission of PNs was discovered after it was predicted theoretically. On the other hand, the powerful infrared emission discovered both in the continuum and in emission lines was never expected.