David M. Brink obtained his first degree at the University of Tasmania in 1951 and his D.Phil. at Oxford University in 1955. Between 1958 and 1993 he held academic positions in the University of Oxford, including a Fellowship at Balliol College and the Moseley Readership in Theoretical Physics, and taught many branches of physics at graduate and undergraduate level. From 1993 to 1998 he was Professor of the History of Physics at the University of Trento in Italy. Professor Brink is a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1982 was a recipient of the Rutherford Medal of the Institute of Physics. He has published several books including Semi-classical Methods in Nucleus-Nucleus Scattering (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Preface
1. Introduction
2. The pairing force and seniority
3. The BCS theory
4. Spontaneous symmetry breaking
5. Pairing vibrations
6. Phase transitions
7. Plastic behaviour of nuclei and other finite systems
8. Sources of pairing in nuclei
9. Beyond mean field
10. Induced interaction
11. Pairing in exotic nuclei
Appendices
References
Index.