Light nuclei in the vicinity of the dripline and beyond

Review article, 2015

After a brief historical overview of the field of physics with radioactive beams, we give an update of the most recent experimental achievements for nuclei at or beyond the nuclear driplines. Long-lived exotic nuclear states are discussed including multi-nucleon radioactivity and exotic isomers. Studies of correlations between decay products in three-body decays and analysis in a Jacobi-coordinate framework are discussed with special emphasis on the difficulty in the interpretations of data obtained in different reactions. We give examples of systematic studies that the vast amount of now existing data allows, such as shell closures, competition between single-particle states in isotopes, isotones and mirror nuclei. The Thomas-Ehrman shift, Garvey-Kelson-type mass relations and IMME analysis of isobaric multiplets with isospin $ T = 3/2$ and 2 are also discussed as well as alternative interpretations in certain cases.