Emerging concepts in nuclear structure based on the shell model

Abstract: Some emerging concepts of nuclear structure are overviewed. (1) Background: the many-body quantum structure of atomic nucleus, a complex system comprising protons and neutrons (called nucleons collectively), has been studied largely based on the idea of the quantum liquid (a la Landau), where nucleons are quasiparticles moving in a (mean) potential well, with weak "residual" interactions between nucleons. The potential is rigid in general, although it can be anisotropic. While this view was a good starting point, it is time to look into kaleidoscopic aspects of the nuclear structure brought in by underlying dynamics and nuclear forces. (2) Methods: exotic features as well as classical issues are investigated from fresh viewpoints based on the shell model and nucleon-nucleon interactions. The 70-year progress of the shell-model approach, including effective nucleon-nucleon interactions, enables us to do this. (3) Results: we go beyond the picture of the solid potential well by activating the monopole interactions of the nuclear forces. This produces notable consequences in key features such as the shell/magic structure, the shape deformation, the dripline, etc. These consequences are understood with emerging concepts such as shell evolution (incl. type-II), T-plot, self-organization (for collective bands), triaxial-shape dominance, new dripline mechanism, etc. The resulting predictions and analyses agree with experiment. (4) Conclusion: atomic nuclei are surprisingly richer objects than initially thought.