RCNP is the national research center for nuclear physics in Japan. It is a laboratory complex consisting of the cyclotron laboratory, the laser electron photon laboratory, and of the Oto underground laboratory. RCNP covers the research activities from nucleon meson nuclear physics to quark lepton nuclear physics.

The cyclotron laboratory is the major laboratory of RCNP. The accelerator complex consisting of the AVF cyclotron with K=140 MeV and the Ring cyclotron with K=400 MeV provides high quality beams of polarized protons and light ions. Using these beams many research activities on the nuclear interaction and masses of mesons in nuclear medium, nuclear spin isospin responses, and giant resonance have been carried out by national and international researchers. The beams have been used also for medical applications.

The laser electron photon laboratory is used to study quark nuclear physics by means of the multi-GeV laser electron photon beam. The polarized photon beam is obtained by Compton back-scatterings of laser photons from 8 GeV electrons at SPring-8. The construction of the beam line of BL33B2 and the detector system for quark nuclear spectroscopy have been completed, and they will be used for studying quark gluon structures and low-energy QCD in the academic year of 1999.

The Oto Cosmo Observatory is the underground laboratory for lepton nuclear physics. High sensitive detectors of ELEGANT V and ELEGANT VI placed in the laboratory are used to study neutrinos by double beta decays and WIMPs by nuclear scattering. A low energy accelerator with high current has been constructed for studying fusion reactions in the sun, and it will be placed at the Observatory to measure the reaction cross sections.

The accelerator developments are being made continuously to provide high quality beams, and a conceptual design study of the multi-GeV electron-nucleus collider is being carried out for the future plan of RCNP.

Theoretical studies are made extensively also by the theory group. The research fields are extended to the study of the unstable nuclei, giant resonances, nuclear astrophysics using nucleons and mesons as the ingredients. At the same time, the quark confinement, the properties of hadrons are studied using lattice QCD and effective theories as the dual Ginzburg-Landau theory.

Computer, network and DAQ system, including the supercomputer system and the new generation network, have been developed.

International collaborations have been developed. New laboratories have joined in the international collaborations network MESON (Medium Energy Science Open Network). The APCTP-RCNP Joint International School on Physics of Hadrons and QCD was held in October 1998 to discuss recent topics in QCD and hadron physics. The RCNP International Symposium on Nuclear Responses and Medium Effects (MEDIUM '98) was held in November 1998 to discuss recent development of the nuclear medium effect, which has been studied via nucleon induced reactions. International Symposium on Nuclear Electro-Weak Spectroscopy (NEWS 99) was held in March 1999 to discuss symmetries and electro-weak processes studied by investigating electro-weak nuclear processes in nuclear micro-laboratories.

The director, Prof. H. Ejiri, has terminated the third term of the director ship of RCNP and the Professor of Osaka University at the end of this fiscal year. Professor Ejiri has promoted strongly to make RCNP as a modern laboratory complex by founding the Laser Electron Photon laboratory and the Oto Cosmo laboratory in addition to the existing AVF/Ring cyclotron laboratory. I, on behalf of all RCNP staffs, RCNP users, and MESON members, would like to express our hearty thanks to him for all what he has done as the director.

RCNP is getting many young graduate students, active PD researchers and excellent visiting researchers from all over the world. We, together with these researchers, would like to contribute much to develop nucleon meson nuclear physics and quark lepton nuclear physics, and also to exploit the interdisciplinary fields of nuclear physics. We welcome new proposals and new collaboration in our laboratory.

Yasuki Nagai
Director of RCNP