Conveners
Nuclear Astrophysics
- Akaa Ayangeakaa (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill / TUNL)
The source of a series of rare, proton-rich stable isotopes, known as the p nuclei, remains an open question in nuclear astrophysics. The p nuclei cannot be produced through the known neutron capture processes such as the s and r process, but instead are thought to be synthesized in astrophysical environments where a series of photodisintegration reactions on s-process seeds takes place....
Measurements of cross section and their extrapolation to stellar conditions are now routinely performed with accuracy of 5% or better. But the formation of $^{16}$O in the fusion of helium with $^{12}$C, in the $^{12}$C($\alpha,\gamma$) $^{16}$O reaction, is still not known with sufficient accuracy, in spite of the central role that this reaction plays in stellar evolution theory. The...
An active-target time-projection chamber (TPC) was developed by the University of Warsaw, in collaboration with University of Connecticut and ELI-NP/IFIN-HH, to measure nuclear reactions of astrophysical interest[1,2]. The experimental program focuses on the study in the laboratory ($\gamma$,p) and ($\gamma$,$\alpha$) reactions which are the time reversal of (p,$\gamma$) and...