[en] The physical and theoretical motivations for the time-dependent mean-field theory are presented, and the successes and limitations of the time-dependent Hartree-Fock initial-vaue problem are reviewed. New theoretical developments are described in the treatment of two-body correlations and the formulation of a quantum mean-field theory of large-amplitude collective motion and tunneling decay. Finally, the mean-field theory is used to obtain new insights into the phenomenon of pion condensation in finite nuclei. 18 figures

[en] Recent advances in variational and perturbative theories are surveyed which offer genuine promise that nuclear matter will soon become a viable tool for investigating nuclear interactions. The basic elements of the hypernetted chain expansion for Jastrow variational functions are briefly reviewed, and comparisons of variational and perturbative results for a series of increasingly complicated systems are presented. Prospects for investigating realistic forces are assessed and the unresolved, open problems are summarized

[en] A critical review is presented of present knowledge of nucleon density distributions from leptonic probes and its implications for medium energy physics

No abstract available

[en] The time-dependent mean field approximation is briefly discussed and then applied to such nuclear problems as heavy ion collisions, fission and pion condensation

[en] A large body of evidence from lattice calculations indicates that instantons play a major role in the physics of light hadrons. This evidence is summarized, and recent results concerning the instanton content of the SU(3) vacuum, instanton contributions to the static potential, and a new class of instanton solutions at finite temperature are reviewed

[en] The nuclear ground state is surveyed theoretically, and specific suggestions are given on how to critically test the theory experimentally. Detailed results on ²⁰⁸Pb are discussed, isolating several features of the charge density distributions. Analyses of ²⁰⁸Pb electron scattering and muonic data are also considered. 14 figures

No abstract available

[en] Evidence from lattice QCD calculations is presented showing that instantons and their associated zero modes play a major role in the physics of light hadrons and the propagation of light quarks in the QCD vacuum

[en] A fundamental problem in quantum many-body theory is formulation of a microscopic theory of collective motion. For self-bound, saturating systems like finite nuclei described in the context of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics with static interactions, the essential problem is how to formulate a systematic quantal theory in which the relevant collective variables and their dynamics arise directly and naturally from the Hamiltonian and the system under consideration. Significant progress has been made recently in formulating the quantum many-body problem in terms of an expansion about solutions to time-dependent mean-field equations. The essential ideas, principal results, and illustrative examples are summarized. An exact expression for an observable of interest is written using a functional integral representation for the evolution operator, and tractable time-dependent mean field equations are obtained by application of the stationary-phase approximation (SPA) to the functional integral. Corrections to the lowest-order theory may be systematically enumerated. 6 figures