In 1955 Sven Gösta Nilsson published the paper `Binding States of Individual Nucleons in Strongly Deformed Nuclei'. This eminent work has been crucial for the understanding of the structure of deformed atomic nuclei. Moreover, the so-called Nilsson model has been widely used for the description of other types of finite systems of fermions such as quantum dots and cold fermionic atoms. During one week in June 2005 we celebrated in Lund the 50th anniversary of the Nilsson model with the International Conference on Finite Fermionic Systems – Nilsson Model 50 Years. With the historical view in mind, the conference focused on present and future problems in nuclear structure physics as well as on the physics of other types of finite Fermi systems. As a background to the recent developments Nobel Laureate Ben Mottelson presented a recollection of early applications and achievements of the Nilsson model in the first talk of the conference, including a personal view of Sven Gösta Nilsson. We are particularly pleased that this contribution could be included in these proceedings.
The scientific programme was structured according to the following subjects:
Shell structure and deformations
The heaviest elements and beyond
Nuclei far from stability
Pairing correlations
Nuclear spectroscopy: large deformations
Nuclear spectroscopy: rotational states
Order and chaos
Cold fermionic atoms
Quantum dots
Many new and interesting results were presented in the 15 invited talks, 30 oral contributions, and in the 33 papers of the poster sessions. The present volume of Physica Scripta contains most of the talks, as well as the short contributions of the posters.
We thank the speakers and all participants who actively contributed to give this memorable conference a very high scientific level in the presented contributions, as well as in numerous discussions inside and outside the sessions. We also thank the international advisory committee for their invaluable work in helping us setting up a high standing scientific programme. Finally, we thank the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences through its Nobel Committee for Physics, the Royal Physiographical Society in Lund, the Technical Faculty (LTH) at Lund University, and the Swedish Research Council (VR) for financial support.
Sven Aberg, Ragnar Bengtsson, Ingemar Ragnarsson and Stephanie Reimann
Department of Mathematical Physics, Lund Institute of Technology, S-22100 Lund, Sweden Joakim Cederkäll, Claes Fahlander and Dirk Rudolph
Division of Nuclear Physics, Lund University, S-22100 Lund, Sweden