While neutron halos were discovered 30 years ago, this is the first book written on the subject of this exotic form of nuclei that typically contain many more neutrons than stable isotopes of those elements. It provides an introductory description of the halo and outlines the discovery and evidence for its existence. It also discusses different theoretical models of the halo’s structure as well as models and techniques in reaction theory that have allowed us to study the halo. This is written at the graduate student (starting a PhD) level.

The author of the book, Jim Al-Khalili, is a theoretician who published some of the key papers on the structure of the halo in the mid- and late-90s and was the first to determine its true size. This monograph is based on review articles that he has written on the mathematical models used to determine the halo structure and the reactions used to model that structure.