Group Symmetries in Nuclear Structure

Book excerpt: This book is the result of a graduate-level "special topics" course I gave at the University of Rochester in 1970. The purpose of the course was to discuss as far as possible all known symmetries in nuclei, with special emphasis on dynamical symmetries. Since there was no comprehensive account of this subject in the literature, I was encouraged to write a review based on my lecture notes. The end result is the present volume. Like the course, the book is intended mainly for graduate students and research workers in nuclear physics. The only prior knowledge required to follow the book is graduate-level quantum mechanics and nuclear physics and hence I believe that it can be useful to both experimental and theoretical nuclear physicists. In addition, the book should prepare a student to read the latest literature on the subject and also train him to do group theoretic work in nuclear physics. The organization of the material in the book is described in Chapter 1.