The Continuum Shell Model is an old but recently revived method that traverses the boundary between nuclear many-body structure and nuclear reactions. The method is based on the non-Hermitian energy-dependent effective Hamiltonian. The formalism, interpretation of solutions and practical implementation of calculations are discussed in detail. The results of the traditional shell model are fully reproduced for bound states; resonance parameters and cross section calculations are presented for decaying states. Particular attention is given to one-and two-nucleon reaction channels including sequential and direct two-body decay modes. New calculations of reaction cross sections and comparisons with experimental data for helium and oxygen isotope chains are presented.

A new version of the nuclear shell model unifies the consideration of the discrete spectrum, where the results reproduce the standard shell model, and continuum. The ingredients of the method are the non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonian, energy-dependent one-body and two-body decay amplitudes, and self-consistent treatment of thresholds. The results for helium and oxygen isotope chains reproduce the data well.

The intrinsic dynamics of a system with open decay channels is described by an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian which at the same time allows one to find the external dynamics, -reaction cross sections. We discuss ways of incorporating this approach into the shell model context. Several examples of increasing complexity, from schematic models to realistic nuclear calculations (chain of oxygen isotopes), are presented. The approach is capable of describing a multitude of phenomena in a unified way combining physics of structure and reactions. Self-consistency of calculations and threshold energy dependence of the coupling to the continuum are crucial for the description of loosely bound states.

In many applications to finite Fermi-systems, the pairing problem has to be treated exactly. We suggest a numerical method of exact solution based on SU(2) quasispin algebras and demonstrate its simplicity and practicality. We show that the treatment of binding energies with the use of the exact pairing and uncorrelated monopole contribution of other residual interactions can serve as an effective alternative to the full shell-model diagonalization in spherical nuclei. A self-consistent combination of the exactly treated pairing and Hartree-Fock method is discussed. Results for Sn isotopes indicate a good agreement with experimental data.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure