Hypernuclei

Hypernuclei are exotic nuclei which contain, in addition to the usual neutrons and protons, at least one hyperon. Many species of δ-hypernuclei, and more recently some Γ-hypernuclei, have been observed and determinations of their masses, excitation energies, lifetimes and modes of production and decay have been made. These results have then been used to elicit various features of the hyperon-nucleon interaction, a necessary procedure since, unlike the situation in the nucleon-nucleon case, the complementary information concerning hyperon-nucleon scattering processes is sparse indeed.