scope:

This book is a collection of talks presented at the International Symposium on Exotic Nuclei, held at Lake Baikal, Russia, on 24 - 28 July 2001. The talks were given by the leading scientists in the physics of exotic nuclei.

Among the topics of the Symposium were the following: production and study of properties of nuclei in extreme states, strongly deformed nuclei, highly excited nuclei and nuclei far from the line of stability as well as nuclei having large angular momenta.

New results of investigations are presented in the book - in particular, the data on new nuclei with proton or neutron haloes, on the changes in the shell structure of nuclei near the drip lines, and on the structure of exotic nuclei, including information on the island of inversion. The latest results on the synthesis of new superheavy elements are also provided, and existing detecting devices and accelerators of exotic nuclei, as well as future projects for the creation of similar set-ups, are presented.