Some new perspectives on pairing in nuclei

Abstract

Following a brief reminder of how the pairing model can be solved exactly, we describe how this can be used to address two interesting issues in nuclear structure physics. One concerns the mechanism for realizing superconductivity in finite nuclei and the other concerns the role of the nucleon Pauli principle in producing $sd$ dominance in interacting boson models of nuclei.

Comments: Invited talk to the Conference "Symmetry in Physics" in honor of F. Iachello. Erice, March 23-30, 2003