Nuclear Italy

Finalist, 2023 Turku Book Award In 1972, the US Navy installed a base for nuclear submarines in the Archipelago of La Maddalena off the northeastern shore of Sardinia, Italy. In response, Italy established a radiation surveillance program to monitor the impact of the base on the environment and public health. In the first systematic study of nuclear expertise in Italy, Davide Orsini focuses on the ensuing technopolitical disputes concerning the role and safety of US nuclear submarines in the Mediterranean Sea from the Cold War period to the closure of the naval base in 2008. His book follows the struggles of different groups—including local residents of the archipelago, US Navy personnel, local administrators, Italian experts, and politicians—to define nuclear submarines as either imperceptible threats, much like radiocontamination, or efficient machines at the service of liberty and freedom. Unlike inland nuclear power plants, vividly present and visible with their tall cooling towers and reactor containers, the mobility and invisibility of submarines contributed to an ambivalence about their nature, perpetuating the idea of nuclear exceptionalism. In Italy, they symbolized objects in constant motion, easily removable at the first sign of potential harm. Orsini demonstrates how these mobile sources of hazard posed special challenges for both expert assessments and public understandings of risk, and in contexts outside the Anglo-Saxon world, where unique social power dynamics held sway over the outcome of technopolitical controversies.

The 9th Conference on Problems in Theoretical Nuclear Physics was organized as part of the project ?Theoretical Physics of Nuclei and Many-Body Systems? involving 17 Italian universities and sponsored by the Italian Ministry of Research and University.This volume includes the invited papers on the main subjects of the project and all the individual contributions on special topics. It reviews the work performed in the last two years by the participating Italian community of nuclear theorists. In addition, national and international perspectives are focussed by a panel on the future programmes of the large Italian laboratories and of the experimental community, as well as in a general review by A Faessler.

This volume contains the proceedings of the conference held in Cortona, October 6-9, 2004, that was organized as part of the project “Theoretical Physics of Nuclei and Many-Body Systems” involving 17 Italian Universities and sponsored by the Italian Ministery of Research and University. All invited papers on the main subjects of the project as well as all the individual contributions on special topics are included. As such these proceedings review the work performed in the last two years by the participating Italian community of nuclear theorists. In addition, in a panel international perspectives are focussed on the future programmes of the experimental physics community. Contents:Nuclear Structure (G Colò)Quark Gluon Plasma and Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions (F Becattini)Nuclear Astrophysics (A Drago)Few-Nucleon Systems (A Kievsky)Highlights on Heavy Ion Reactions around the Fermi Energy (A Bonasera)Nuclear Dynamics (G Pollarolo)Nuclear Physics with Electroweak Probes (G Co')Study of Strongly Interacting Matter (13HP) (C Guaraldo)The PANDA Experimental Program (P Gianotti)EURONS — The Integrated Infrastructure Initiative of Nuclear-Structure Physics in Europe within FP6 (A C Mueller et al.)Hadron Structure: The Physics Program of HAPNET (P J Mulders)and other papers Readership: Researchers and students in theoretical nuclear physics and related fields. Keywords:Nuclear Physics;Theoretical Physics;Nuclear Astrophysics;Hadronic Matter;Few- and Many-Body Systems

The Cortona Conference is a biennial meeting of all Italian groups from about 20 universities who are active in theoretical nuclear physics. This volume presents the main achievements and perspectives of Italian theoretical nuclear physics, with particular reference to the last two years. The first part contains the invited talks on: (1) Nuclear structure, (2) Light nuclei physics, (3) Hadronic degrees of freedom, (4) Nuclear physics with electroweak probes, (5) Nuclear dynamics and nuclear matter, and (6) First results about the AIACE experiment. Furthermore it includes two longer communications on: (7) Nuclear physics with exotic beams, and (8) Solution of the folding problem in protein models. The second part contains contributed papers. Contents:Contributed Papers:Nuclear Structure and Related AreasFew-Nucleon SystemsHadronic Degrees of FreedomNuclear Physics with Electroweak ProbesNuclear Matter and Nuclear Dynamics Readership: Graduate students and researchers in theoretical nuclear physics and related areas. Keywords: