Direct reactions with exotic nuclei, nuclear structure and astrophysics

Intermediate energy Coulomb excitation and dissociation is a useful tool for nuclear structure and astrophysics studies. Low-lying strength in nuclei far from stability was discovered by this method. The effective range theory for low-lying strength in one-neutron halo nuclei is summarized and extended to two-neutron halo nuclei. This is of special interest in view of recent rather accurate experimental results on the low-lying electric dipole strength in 11Li. Another indirect approach to nuclear astrophysics is the Trojan-horse method. It is pointed out that it is a suitable tool to investigate subthreshold resonances.