  The coupling of photons with (ultra-) relativistic atomic nuclei is presented
in two particular circumstances: very high electromagnetic fields and very
short photon pulses. We consider a typical situation where the (bare) nuclei
(fully stripped of electrons) are accelerated to energies ~1TeV per nucleon
(according to the state of the art at LHC, for instance) and photon sources
like petawatt lasers \simeq1eV -radiation (envisaged by ELI-NP project, for
instance), or free-electron laser ~10keV -radiation, or synchrotron sources,
etc. In these circumstances the nuclear scale energy can be attained, with very
high field intensities. In particular, we analyse the nuclear transitions
induced by the radiation, including both one- and two-photon processes, as well
as the polarization-driven transitions which may lead to giant dipole
resonances. The nuclear (electrical) polarization concept is introduced. It is
shown that the perturbation theory for photo-nuclear reactions is applicable,
although the field intensity is high, since the corresponding interaction
energy is low and the interaction time (pulse duration) is short. It is also
shown that the description of the giant nuclear dipole resonance requires the
dynamics of the nuclear electrical polarization degrees of freedom.
