Exotic nuclei

An important part of modern nuclear-structure studies is devoted to nuclei far from stability, also called exotic nuclei. The impressive recent progress in the latter field has been possible due to the development of experimental techniques, such as isotope separation on-line (ISOL) and zero-degree magnetic spectrometers. This review will first describe these experimental methods and will then give examples of recent investigations of exotic nuclei with emphasis on the binding-energy surface, on nuclear shapes, and on decay spectroscopy. Nuclear structure studies of astrophysical relevance will also be discussed. (Author)