Combining elastic and inelastic processes with transfer reactions, this two-part volume explores how these events affect heavy ion collisions. Special attention is given to processes involving the transfer of two nucleons, which are specific for probing pairing correlations in nuclei. This novel treatment provides, together with the description of surface vibration and rotations, a unified picture of heavy ion reactions in terms of the elementary modes of nuclear excitation. Heavy Ion Reactions is essential reading for beginning graduate students as well as experienced researchers.

This book is based on Valery Zagrebaev's original papers and lecture materials on nuclear physics with heavy ions, which he prepared and extended through many years for the students of nuclear physics specialties. Thе book outlines the main experimental facts on nuclear reactions involving heavy ions at low energies. It focuses on discussions of nuclear physics processes that are a subject of active, modern research and it gives illustrative explanations of these phenomena in the framework of up-to-date theoretical concepts. This textbook is intended for students in physics who have completed a standard course of quantum mechanics and have basic ideas of nuclear physics processes. It is designed as a kind of lifeboat that, at the end of the course, will allow students to navigate the modern scientific literature and to understand the goals and objectives of current, on-going research.