Quantum chaos and nuclear structure

The quantum level statistics were studied for the first time in nuclear spe ctra 60 years ago [I.I. Gurevich. JEPT 9 (1939) 1283]. Now, we know that at omic nuclei and complex atoms are good examples of mesoscopic quantum syste ms where the effects of quantum many-body chaos are clearly seen both in sp ectra and in the properties of complicated wave functions of stationary sta tes. We present a short and subjective review of those ideas, applications to nuclear structure, and open problems. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.