This volume contains the proceedings of the "International Conference on Spin Excitations in Nuclei" held in Telluride, Colo rado, March 25-27, 1982. The motivation for the conference was, in a large part due to the recent development of new variable energy accelerators which produce high quality beams of electrons, protons, and pions that are providing the first precise information on spin excitations in nuclei over a large range of spin and mass. In the past such data had been restricted primarily to light nuclei and were generally resolution limited. Perhaps, the most exciting new result has been the clear observation of the elusive spin-dipole strength (Gamow Teller and Ml) in medium and heavy mass nuclei through the use of the (p,n) and (p,p') reactions at or near zero degrees with 100-200 MeV incident protons. Energy dependence in the isovector parts of the nucleon-nucleon interaction make the 100-200 MeV energy region particularly appropriate for such studies. The clean data from (e,e'), ('IT,'IT'), (p,p'), and (p,n) on high spin "stretched" states which have particularly simple structure has also been quite impor tant. The recent results contain important new information on the nature of the spin dependent forces in nuclei. These in turn are inherently related to the properties of the nuclear mesonic field and the underlying quantum chromodynamics.

Giant resonances are collective excitations of the atomic nucleus, a typical quantum many-body system. The study of these fundamental modes has in many respects contributed to our understanding of the bulk behavior of the nucleus and of the dynamics of non-equilibrium excitations. Although the phenomenon of giant resonances has been known for more than 50 years, a large amount of information has been obtained in the last 10 years. This book gives an up-to-date, comprehensive account of our present knowledge of giant resonances. It presents the experimental facts and the techniques used to obtain that information, describes how these facts fit into theoretical concepts and how this allows to determine various nuclear properties which are otherwise difficult to obtain. Included as an introduction is an overview of the main facts, a short history of how the field has developed in the course of time, and a discussion of future perspectives.

The primary emphasis of the Seminar is on the modes of excitation in both spherical and deformed nuclei. Several topics at the forefront of current research in nuclear structure are covered by leading physicists. The main themes are: Single-particle and Collective Degrees of Freedom in Low-energy Modes of Excitation, The Nature of High-spin States in Deformed and Spherical Nuclei and The Role of Giant Resonances in Nuclear Structure.

The proceedings present the most recent results of experimental and theoretical nuclear spectroscopy, revealing the effects of rapid rotation and thermal fluctuations on the shapes and superfluid properties of a wide range of atomic nuclei. Unstable and novel shapes are emphasized, e.g. super-and hyper-deformed shapes, and triaxial quadrupole and octupole shapes (both static and vibrational). Theoretical treatments are given in terms of a variety of mean field models, as well as the Fermion Dynamical Symmetry Model and the Interacting Boson Model. New experimental methods of gamma-ray spectroscopy are discussed, including fluctuation analysis and energy-ordered gamma ray spectroscopy.

This is the most recent and complete review on giant resonances in nuclei. It includes electric as well as magnetic collective states and a detailed discussion on the excitation mechanisms and the decay properties is given.