“Excursions in the exotic parts of the nuclear landscape”
Prof. Dr. Björn Jonson (Fundamental Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg)

Modern nuclear physics has two main aims: (I) to understand the limits of nuclear stability, by producing exotic nuclei with vastly different numbers of neutrons and protons than Nature has provided us with, and (II) at the smaller scale to explore the substructure of the constituent neutrons and protons, for it is in the interactions of their constituent quarks that the ultimate description of nuclei must lie.
In this colloquium I shall deal with the first of these quests. After an introductory historical overview of the first daring attempts to produce nuclei far off the line of beta stability I shall give some examples of the recent development of the ability to produce accelerated beams of very exotic radioactive nuclei that has revolutionized nuclear science. There are two approaches to producing radioactive beams – the “fragmentation” and “ISOL” techniques. Europe has been at the forefront in developing both production methods and is now poised to capitalize on this leading position by constructing world leading facilities based on these two complimentary processes. Radioactive beams open to us the prospect of being able to produce nuclei with a large excess of neutrons or protons. For the first time we are now able to study reactions between the 6,000 to 7,000 nuclei we believe exist, rather than just the paltry 290 stable ones that Nature provides. We know already from our preliminary explorations that new phenomena emerge which we have not previously been aware of (neutron halos, melting of shell structures, etc.). I shall give some examples of the existing key data from different facilities worldwide and show how the combination of results from different experimental approaches step by step helps us understanding the salient features of these new phenomena. At the end I shall also discuss the next generation of facilities which will enable us to explore right to the limits of nuclear existence with an excess of protons, and well out into the unknown nuclear landscape of neutron excess, where the ultimate limit that Nature sets on neutron binding is unknown.