Regularities of Many-body Systems Interacting by a Two-body Random Ensemble

The ground states of all even-even nuclei have angular momentum, $I$, equal to zero, I=0, and positive parity, $\pi=+$. This feature was believed to be a consequence of the attractive short-range interaction between nucleons. However, in the presence of two-body random interactions, the predominance of $I^{\pi}=0^+$ ground states (0 g.s.) was found to be robust both for bosons and for an even number of fermions. For simple systems, such as $d$ bosons, $sp$ bosons, $sd$ bosons, and a few fermions in single-$j$ shells for small $j$, there are a few approaches to predict and/or explain spin $I$ ground state ($I$ g.s.) probabilities. An empirical approach to predict $I$ g.s. probabilities is available for general cases, such as fermions in a single-$j$ ($j>7/2$) or many-$j$ shells and various boson systems, but a more fundamental understanding of the robustness of 0 g.s. dominance is still out of reach. Further interesting results are also reviewed concerning other robust phenomena of many-body systems in the presence of random two-body interactions, such as the odd-even staggering of binding energies, generic collectivity, the behavior of average energies, correlations, and regularities of many-body systems interacting by a displaced two-body random ensemble.
Comment: finalized version, review article (103 pages, 23 figures). accepted by Physics Reports