The Seventh International Conference on Radioactive Nuclear Beams

The Seventh International Conference on Radioactive Nuclear Beams (RNB7) was held at Cortina d'Ampezzo, a very famous and beautiful mountain resort located in the heart of the Dolomiti Alps, on 2-7 July, 2006. The conference was organized jointly by three INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare) sections: Padova, Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro. It was the seventh of a series initiated in Berkeley/LBL, USA (1989), continued in Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium (1991), East Lansing/MSU, USA (1993), Ohmiya/RIKEN, Japan (1996), Divonne/CERN, France (2000), Argonne National Laboratory, USA (2003). The Conference was financially supported by INFN-Italy, the University of Padova , IUPAP and several Companies active in this field

The goal of these conferences is to present and debate extensively all topics connected to Radioactive Nuclear Beams, considered one of the most promising fields in Nuclear Research: theory, fundamental physics tests, technical developments, facilities existing, under construction, and planned.

All Nuclear Physics Laboratories, of small and large size, are investing at least part (and in some case a very large fraction) of their efforts in terms of human resources and budgets in this new line of research. All classical research fields formerly extensively studied with stable beams are presently extended using Radioactive Beams with exciting new results even if the beam intensities presently available are still an order of magnitude smaller than the ones obtained with stable beams. Along this line new large facilities have already started operation in Japan/RIKEN, have already been funded in France/GANIL and Germany/GSI, and are still in the planning stage in the USA/DOE, and by Italian Laboratories. The construction of a very large “future” generation facility is also debated in Europe/EURISOL. All this activity, well complemented and assisted by theoretical developments, is a lively sign of the relevance of this research field. Radioactive Nuclear Beams are also important to further develop related research fields, as is for example nuclear astrophysics where the use of such beams is extremely crucial.

The conference was attended by around 180 participants from 24 countries with a balanced representation of more senior and younger scientists. IUPAP funds provided financial support to scientists from countries with limited financial resources as well as to younger scientists.

The RNB7 Organizing Committee consisted of C.Signorini (Chair), M.Lattuada, G.Cuttone, R.Menegazzo, S.Lunardi, F.Soramel, A.Vitturi, A.Gadea, L.Tecchio and the secretaries C.Miletti, A.R.Spalla..

The main conference topics were the following.

•  Radioactive nuclear beam facilities

•  Production of radioactive nuclear beams by projectile fragmentation

•  Production of radioactive nuclear beams by ISOL techniques

•  Studies of cross-sections for production of radioactive nuclei

•  Nuclear reactions with radioactive beams and weakly bound nuclei

•  Nuclear structure far from stability

•  Nuclear astrophysics

•  Experimental developments for studies with RNB: detectors and instrumentation

•  Beyond nuclear physics with RNB: applications, fundamental interactions

The hard and time consuming job of refereeing the written contributions was undertaken by the members of the Advisory Board and of the Organizing Committee. This work took more time than was originally estimated, but it is hoped that this precious work will add value to the proceedings published as a regular issue of the International Journal EPJ Special Topics.