Relativistic Hartree-Bogoliubov and RPA description of exotic nuclear structure

A review of recent applications of the relativistic mean-field theory to the structure of exotic nuclei is presented. Models based on the relativistic mean-field approximation provide a microscopically consistent description of the nuclear many-body problem, not only in nuclei along the valley of β-stability, but also in exotic nuclei with extreme isospin values and close to the particle drip lines. The structure of proton drip line nuclei in the 60 < A < 100 mass range is studied with the Relativistic Hartree Bogoliubov model. For the elements which determine the astrophysical rapid proton capture process path, the RHB model predicts the location of the proton drip-line, the ground-state quadrupole deformations and one-proton separation energies at and beyond the drip-line. On the neutron-rich side the relativistic random phase approximation, based on effective mean-field Lagrangians with nonlinear meson self-interaction terms, has been applied in the analysis of the evolution of the isovector dipole response in nuclei with a large neutron excess. In particular, the onset of dipole pygmy resonances in medium-heavy neutron-rich nuclei has been studied. (author)