Foreword

Abstract

The Tenth International Spring Seminar on Nuclear Physics was held in Vietri sul Mare from May 21 to May 25, 2010. This Seminar was the tenth in a series of topical meetings held every two or three years in the Naples area. The series began with the Sorrento meeting in 1986 and continued with the Capri meeting in 1988, the Ischia meeting in 1990, the Amalfi meeting in 1992, the Ravello meeting in 1995, the S. Agata meeting in 1998, the Maiori meeting in 2001, the Paestum meeting in 2004, and the Vico Equense meeting in 2007.For this tenth meeting we returned to Salerno Bay and met in the small town of Vietri. While the location of the Conference has never been the same, what remained invariant is the aim of these meetings, which is to discuss recent advances and new perspectives in nuclear structure experiments and theory in a pleasant and friendly atmosphere.It is by now well established that we have entered a new era in Nuclear Physics research with the advent of radioactive ion beam facilities. While nuclear structure studies are currently being performed in several laboratories where RIBs are available, the development of new facilities, which will provide high-intensity beams, is in progress or under discussion in Europe, Asia and North America. At this meeting we had a comprehensive overview of this fascinating field and of future scenarios thanks to the participation of leaders of the most important projects.The results that are becoming available for nuclei far from stability are highlighting new themes of research, such as the evolution of the shell structure when moving towards the particle drip lines, and stimulating a proficuous interplay between experiment and theory. On the other hand, new ideas and the development of more powerful computational tools promise a deeper understanding of the structure of nuclei in terms of the basic interactions between their constituents.As usual, the program of the meeting consisted of general talks and of more specialized seminars, the latter including most of the contributions submitted by participants. The speakers covered five main topics: i) Nuclear Structure far from Stability: New Advances and Perspectives; ii) From Nuclear Forces to Nuclear Structure; iii) Exploring Nuclear Shell Structure: Experiment and Theory; iv) New Aspects of Collective Nuclear Motion; and v) Special Topics.We received 63 manuscripts out of the 77 invited papers and contributions presented at the Seminar. All of these have been peer reviewed and are collected in this volume. We would like to thank all the anonymous colleagues who have acted as referees to assess the suitability of the various articles for publication in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series. We are confident that the high quality of both invited and contributed papers contained in these Proceedings will be appreciated by the nuclear physics community.As was the case for most of the previous Seminars, the Vietri Seminar also ended with a Round Table Discussion on the theme ‘Trends and Perspectives in Nuclear Structure’. N Benczer-Koller, B A Brown, A Faessler, B Fornal, O Sorlin, and I Talmi kindly agreed to be on the panel and their remarks were essential in bringing about the active involvement of the audience.The Conference had about 100 participants from some 20 countries (please see PDF for list of participants). This is well in line with the tradition of these meetings, as is the fact that about 50% of the present participants attended one or more of the previous Seminars.We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare and the University of Naples Federico II who helped make the Seminar possible. We also acknowledge the support provided in various ways by the Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche which acted as host to the Seminar.Aldo Covello Angela Gargano Editors LOCAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEEA Covello (Chair) A Gargano (Co-Chair) L Coraggio (Scientific Secretary) F Andreozzi N Itaco G La Rana N Lo Iudice A. Porrino INTERNATIONAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE J Äystö (Jyväskylä)D Morrissey (Michigan) A B Balantekin (Wisconsin)W Nazarewicz (Oak Ridge) B R Barrett (Tucson)P von Neumann-Cosel (Darmstadt) P G Bizzeti (Firenze)R Okamoto (Kyushu) Y Blumenfeld (CERN and IPN Orsay)A V Ramayya (Vanderbilt) J Dobaczewski (Warsaw)J Schiffer (Argonne) G Fiorentini (Ferrara)A C Shotter (Edinburgh) B Fornal (Kraków)Ch Stoyanov (Sofia) S Gales (GANIL)I Talmi (Rehovot) F Iachello (Yale)P van Duppen (Leuven) R Jolos (Dubna)A Vitturi (Padova) M Lattuada (Catania) SPONSORS OF THE SEMINARDipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università di Napoli "Federico II" Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare Università di Napoli Federico II