Developments in the study of nuclear clustering in light even - even nuclei

We review some of the developments in the experimental and theoretical understanding of cluster symmetries. We pay particular attention to the association of clustering with highly deformed configurations and to the ways in which the symmetries of the nuclear interaction give rise to many different cluster modes. On the experimental side we concentrate particularly on those experimental studies of clustering where resonant particle spectroscopy is applied to breakup reactions, using position-sensitive, charged-particle detectors. We investigate the role of clustering and cluster models in nuclear reactions and examine the recent evidence for -cluster chain configurations in the light even - even nuclei from to . On the theoretical side, we briefly introduce fully microscopic models, but concentrate mainly on Bloch - Brink and local potential cluster models. The double-resonance mechanism, band-crossing model and recent work on explicit models of the interaction between deformed nuclei are also summarized.