The ABC classification of exotic nuclei: a proposal

Abstract

The large number of existing nuclear species and the long list of their possible different exotic properties, such as presence of a halo (A), Borromean structure (B), clusterisation (C) and others, calls for a classification scheme that is universal, concise, categorical, informative, accessible and easily extensible. We provide here a first reasoned attempt to fill this gap with an abridged naming scheme, called $ABC$, based on definitions and properties that characterise modern nuclear physics. We limit our chart to light isotopes with $Z\le 10$ where most of these features appear presently.