Mean-Field and Pairing Properties of Exotic Nuclei: Exploring the Nuclear Landscape

In years to come, we shall see substantial progress in our understanding ofnuclear structure - a rich and many-faceted field. An important element in thistask will be to extend the study of nuclei into new domains. The journey to'the limits' of isospin, angular momentum, and mass and charge is a quest fornew and unexpected phenomena which await us in uncharted territories. What isextremely important from a theoretical point of view is that the new data arealso expected to bring qualitatively new information about the effectivenucleon-nucleon interaction and hence about the fundamental properties of thenucleonic many-body system. The main objective of this presentation is todiscuss some of the challenges and opportunities for nuclear structure researchwith radioactive nuclear beams.Comment: Presented at the Yukawa International Seminar 2001 (YKIS01) on Physics of Unstable Nuclei, Kyoto, Japan, 5-10 November 2001, to be published in Progress of Theoretical Physic