Relativity plays an important role in atomic nuclei, and, since the early 1970s, there has been increasing interest in, and literature on, the nucleus as a relativistic system. In fact, the relativistic treatment provides a powerful method to describe nuclear structure and reactions. It is thus an ideal time to collect and review the important landmarks in this book. Directed to advanced students and researchers, it explains both the underlying relativistic theory and compares predictions with actual experiments.

Inhalt

1 Introduction.- 2 Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Fields.- 3 Basic Features of the Meson Theory of Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions.- 4 The Relativistic Mean-Field Approximation for Nuclear Structure.- 5 Electromagnetic Interactions of Nucleons in the Relativistic Framework.- 6 The Relativistic Approach to Nucleon-Nucleus Scattering.- 7 Pion Dynamics and Chiral Symmetry.- 8 The Relativistic Hartree-Fock Approach.- 9 Brueckner-Hartree-Fock Methods for Nuclear Matter and Finite Nuclei.- 10 Excited Nuclear States in the Relativistic RPA Method.- 11 The Equation of State of Nuclear Matter for Supernovas and Neutron Stars.- 12 Alternative Relativistic Models.- 13 Some Recent Applications of Relativistic Nuclear Theory.- 14 Summary and Outlook.- A Appendices.- A.1 Four-Dimensional Notation and the Dirac Matrices.- A.2 Properties of the Ground State of Nuclear Matter in the Walecka Model.- A.3 General Form of Local Dirac Equation.- A.4 Equivalent Local Dirac Nuclear Models.- A.5 Nucleon Effective Mass in the Nuclear Medium.- A.7 Boundary Conditions for Wave Functions and Meson Potentials.- A.8 Generalized Weinberg Transformation.- A.9 Expansions of the Vertex Functions for Various Mesons.- A.10 Globally Chirally Invariant Lagrangian for the Model with an Axial Meson.- A.11 Direct and Exchange Matrix Elements for the Two-Body Spin-Orbit Force.- A.12 Hartree-Fock Procedure for the Point-Coupling Model.- References.