Photopion Nuclear Physics

This volume consists of twelve review articles and a variety of short contributions which are based on lectures presented at the International Symposium on Photopion Nuclear Physics. The review articles were submitted after the sym- posium, and there was considerable editing and cross referen- cing with the aim of achieving a greater overall unity than ordinarily found in conference proceedings. Photopion Nuclear Physics, as the name suggests, combines two of the most active areas of current intermediate energy nuclear physics research - electromagnetic phenomena as studied by means of electron scattering and photonuclear pro- cesses, and mesonic effects in nuclei. The potential value of photopion studies as a complement to electron scattering for the study of spin-isospin aspects of nuclear transitions has been widely recognized for about a decade, thanks to the the- oretical work at such institutions as Stanford and Catholic Universities. In fact, some of this theoretical work was done in anticipation of the advent of the new high duty cycle and good energy resolution electron linacs. The potential for using this reaction to study mesonic effects was not as broad- ly addressed at that time. However, as seen in the following pages of these proceedings, that situation has dramatically changed.