This long-standing introductory text thoroughly describes nuclear many-body theory, with an emphasis on methodology and the technical aspects of the theories that have been used to describe the nucleus. Now available in a more affordable softcover edition, the original contents of The Nuclear Many-Body Problem presented here is intended for students with basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and some understanding of nuclear phenomena.

From the reviews:
"Its scope and complexity are suitable for easy reading by beginning students of nuclear theory. With a crisp and concise style, the authors quickly develop the shell-model approach to the nuclear many-body problem and subsequently devote more than a third of the text to Hartree-Fock and related models..." Physics Today

1 The Liquid Drop Model.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 The Semi-empirical Mass Formula.- 1.3 Deformation Parameters.- 1.4 Surface Oscillations About a Spherical Shape.- 1.5 Rotations and Vibrations for Deformed Shapes.- 1.6 Nuclear Fission.- 1.7 Stability of Rotating Liquid Drops.- 2 The Shell Model.- 2.1 Introduction and General Considerations.- 2.2 Experimental Evidence for Shell Effects.- 2.3 The Average Potential of the Nucleus.- 2.4 Spin Orbit Coupling.- 2.5 The Shell Model Approach to the Many-Body Problem.- 2.6 Symmetry Properties.- 2.7 Comparison with Experiment.- 2.8 Deformed Shell Model.- 2.9 Shell Corrections to the Liquid Drop Model and the Strutinski Method.- 3 Rotation and Single-Particle Motion.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 General Survey.- 3.3 The Particle-plus-Rotor Model.- 3.4 The Cranking Model.- 4 Nuclear Forces.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 The Bare Nucleon-Nucleon Force.- 4.3 Microscopic Effective Interactions.- 4.4 Phenomenological Effective Interactions.- 4.5 Concluding Remarks.- 5 The Hartree-Fock Method.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 The General Variational Principle.- 5.3 The Derivation of the Hartree-Fock Equation.- 5.4 The Hartree-Fock Method in a Simple Solvable Model.- 5.5 The Hartree-Fock Method and Symmetries.- 5.6 Hartree-Fock with Density Dependent Forces.- 5.7 Concluding Remarks.- 6 Pairing Correlations and Superfluid Nuclei.- 6.1 Introduction and Experimental Survey.- 6.2 The Seniority Scheme.- 6.3 The BCS Model.- 7 The Generalized Single-Particle Model (HFB Theory).- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 The General Bogoliubov Transformation.- 7.3 The Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov Equations.- 7.4 The Pairing-plus-Quadrupole Model.- 7.5 Applications of the HFB Theory for Ground State Properties.- 7.6 Constrained Hartree-Fock Theory (CHF).- 7.7 HFB Theory in the Rotating Frame(SCC).- 8 Harmonic Vibrations.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Tamm-Dancoff Method.- 8.3 General Considerations for Collective Modes.- 8.4 Particle-Hole Theory with Ground State Correlations (RPA).- 8.5 Linear Response Theory.- 8.6 Applications and Comparison with Experiment.- 8.7 Sum Rules.- 8.8 Particle-Particle RPA.- 8.9 Quasi-particle RPA.- 9 Boson Expansion Methods.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Boson Representations in Even-Even Nuclei.- 9.3 Odd Mass Nuclei and Particle Vibration Coupling.- 10 The Generator Coordinate Method.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 The General Concept.- 10.3 The Lipkin Model as an Example.- 10.4 The Generator Coordinate Method and Boson Expansions.- 10.5 The One-Dimensional Harmonic Oscillator.- 10.6 Complex Generator Coordinates.- 10.7 Derivation of a Collective Hamiltonian.- 10.8 The Choice of the Collective Coordinate.- 10.9 Application of the Generator Coordinate Method for Bound States.- 11 Restoration of Broken Symmetries.- 11.1 Introduction.- 11.2 Symmetry Violation in the Mean Field Theory.- 11.3 Transformation to an Intrinsic System.- 11.4 Projection Methods.- 12 The Time Dependent Hartree-Fock Method (TDHF).- 12.1 Introduction.- 12.2 The Full Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock Theory.- 12.3 Adiabatic Time-Dependent Hartree-Fock Theory (ATDHF).- 13 Semiclassical Methods in Nuclear Physics.- 13.1 Introduction.- 13.2 The Static Case.- 13.3 The Dynamic Case.- Appendices.- A Angular Momentum Algebra in the Laboratory and the Body-Fixed System.- B Electromagnetic Moments and Transitions.- B.l The General Form of the Hamiltonian.- B.2 Static Multipole Moments.- B.3 The Multipole Expansion of the Radiation Field.- B.4 Multipole Transitions.- B.5 Single-Particle Matrix Elements in a Spherical Basis.- B.6 Translational Invariance and Electromagnetic Transitions.-B.7 The Cross Section for the Absorption of Dipole Radiation.- C Second Quantization.- C.1 Creation and Annihilation Operators.- C.2 Field Operators in the Coordinate Space.- C.3 Representation of Operators.- C.4 Wick's Theorem.- D Density Matrices.- D.l Normal Densities.- D.2 Densities of Slater Determinants.- D.3 Densities of BCS and HFB States.- D.4 The Wigner Transformation of the Density Matrix.- E Theorems Concerning Product Wave Functions.- E.l The Bloch-Messiah Theorem [BM 62].- E.2 Operators in the Quasi-particle Space.- E.3 Thouless' Theorem.- E.4 The Onishi Formula.- E.5 Bogoliubov Transformations for Bosons.- F Many-Body Green's Functions.- F.l Single-Particle Green's Function and Dyson's Equation.- F.2 Perturbation Theory.- F.3 Skeleton Expansion.- F.4 Factorization and Brückner-Hartree-Fock.- F.5 Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov Equations.- F.6 The Bethe-Salpeter Equation and Effective Forces.- Author Index.