Nuclear Structure

The nucleus is a highly complex many-body system which is bound together by strong interactions between the constituent nucleons.

However, due to the underlying quantum properties of the nucleons and the nature of the force that holds them together, regularities and symmetries do arise in the shell structure of nuclei. These manifest themselves as simple excitation patterns, which can be observed and used as input to theoretical models of the nucleus.

The objective of this area of study is to understand the structure and behaviour of all nuclei in terms of the fundamental forces (strong, weak and electromagnetic) acting on the nucleons, by probing the extremes of nuclear existence. The predictive power of theoretical models of the nucleus can be tested by studying very heavy or very unstable nuclei, and similar theoretical methods can also be applied to other systems such as atomic condensates.

The dynamics of nuclei in collision is also an area of interest, and requires a fuller understanding of how the nucleons are organised within the nucleus. This structure can be studied by observing the decays of unstable nuclei back to stability, or by using electromagnetic, weak or strong probes to examine the response of the nuclear system. This work is done using radioactive beam facilities, to study a range of nuclei at different excitation energies and angular momenta.