Nuclear Astrophysics Underground

When?

Tuesday 6 September 2011, 14:00

Where?

30 BB 03 Physics Seminar Room

Open to:

Staff, Students

Speaker:

Prof Michael Wiescher, Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics & Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame

The field of nuclear astrophysics is concerned with the question of energy production and nucleosynthesis of the elements in quiescent and explosive stellar environments. Key reactions are charged particle interactions at low energy, which determine the abundance distribution up to iron and play a critical role in providing the seed material for the nucleosynthesis of heavier elements. Charged particle reactions in quiescent stellar burning also determine the lifetime of the evolutionary burning stages of stars and therefore need to be studied at the characteristic temperatures of the stellar environment. Because of the extremely low cross sections of these reactions direct measurements are not available except for two cases and the determination of stellar reaction rates relies largely on theoretical extrapolation of existing higher energy data. A number of new methods have been developed over the last decade to improve the experimental data at low energies. This includes inverse kinematics techniques using intense heavy ion beams and high resolution recoil separators. Alternative methods are experiments in an underground, cosmic ray background free environment. Both approached have contributed greatly to our understanding of stellar burning. 

This talk will summarize some of the critical experiments, which, coupled with the development of new theoretical methods have addressed questions of energy production, nucleosynthesis, and neutrino production in stellar hydrogen burning environment. Also presented will be the status and progress in the design and development of new or future facilities and methods.