J.H. Koch - Böcker

The 1988 Summer School on New Aspects of Nuclear Dynamics took place in the style that by now has become a tradition: a series of lectures by well known scientists on modem topics of nuclear physics, where special emphasis is placed on the didactic aspects of the lectures. In the past few years, we have witnessed a rapid evolution of the field of nuclear physics towards novel directions of research. This development is accompanied by the construction of some of the largest experimental facilities ever built for nuclear research. The subjects covered by the Summer School focussed on two main issues currently under active investigation and which will be pursued with the new facilities: the transition from nucleonic to quark degrees of freedom in the decription of nuclear reactions, and the behavior of nuclear matter as one approaches extreme densities and temperatures. These topics in many respects go beyond traditional nuclear physics and the speakers therefore also included high energy physicists. From the response of the participants it was clear that the program of the school filled a gap in the curriculum of many students. We wish to thank all the speakers for their well organized lectures, which were nicely geared to the level of the school, and for spending extra time on problem sessions and extensive discussions. The organization of this Summer School was made possible by substantial support from the Science Committee of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The last decade has been witness to many exciting and rapid developments in the fields of Nuclear Physics and Intermediate Energy Physics, the interface between Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics. These developments involved to a large extent the sub nucleonic degrees of freedom in nuclei. In deep inelastic lepton scattering from nuclei, for example, it was observed that the quark structure of the nucleon is influenced by the nuclear medium. Also, the spin-dependent structure function of the nucleon was found to differ from sum rules based on SU(3) symmetry, a discrepancy referred to as the "spin crisis". In pion electroproduction at threshold and in the production of pions and other mesons in heavy ion collisions at intermediate energies interesting experimental results have been obtained, which triggered lively theoretical discussions. Furthermore, the search for the quark-gluon plasma phase of hadronic matter, a phase that is supposed to have existed in the first few seconds of the Big Bang, has been intensified. Not only were these developments accompanied by technical developments, such as the building of new experimental facilities, but also extensive theoretical efforts have been directed towards understanding these phenomena. These concerted efforts will hopefully lead to an understanding of the transition from the non-perturbative QCD regime to the perturbative one, in which the quark structure of nucleons is better understood. All of the aforementioned developments occur at a high pace, making it difficult to incorporate them into the courses offered to advanced students.