Projection techniques to approach the nuclear many-body problem

Our understanding of angular-momentum-projection goes beyond quantum-number restoration for symmetry-violated states. The angular-momentum-projection method can be viewed as an efficient way of truncating the shell-model space which is otherwise too large to handle. It defines a transformation from the intrinsic system, where dominant excitation modes in the low-energy region are identified with the concept of spontaneous symmetry breaking, to the laboratory frame with well-organized configuration states according to excitations. An energydictated, physically-guided shell-model truncation can then be carried out within the projected space and the Hamiltonian is thereby diagonalized in a compact basis. The present article reviews the theory of angular-momentum-projection applied in the nuclear many-body problem. Angular momentum projection emerges naturally if a deformed state is treated quantum-mechanically. To demonstrate how different physical problems in heavy, deformed nuclei can be efficiently described with different truncation schemes, we introduce the projected shell model and show examples of calculation in a basis with axial symmetry, a basis with triaxiality, and a basis with both quasiparticle and phonon excitations. Technical details of how to calculate the projected matrix elements and how to build a workable model with the projection techniques are given in the appendix.