Exotic nuclei far from the stability line

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in the physics of exotic, unstable nuclei near the drip lines, highlighting their unique structures, reactions, and new phenomena uncovered through radioactive beam experiments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of the developments in understanding the structure and reactions of unstable nuclei over recent decades.

Findings

Identification of halo and skin structures in unstable nuclei

Observation of new magic numbers in exotic nuclei

Detection of pygmy dipole resonances

Abstract

The recent availability of radioactive beams has opened up a new era in nuclear physics. The interactions and structure of exotic nuclei close to the drip lines have been studied extensively world wide, and it has been revealed that unstable nuclei, having weakly bound nucleons, exhibit characteristic features such as a halo structure and a soft dipole excitation. We here review the developments of the physics of unstable nuclei in the past few decades. The topics discussed in this Chapter include the halo and skin structures, the Coulomb breakup, the dineutron correlation, the pair transfer reactions, the two-nucleon radioactivity, the appearance of new magic numbers, and the pygmy dipole resonances.