”We are star stuff”. The famous quote by Carl Sagan refers to the fact that almost all elements were synthesized and “cooked” by nuclear reactions in stars. The elements are released at the end of a star’s lifetime, and are subsequently incorporated into a new generation of stars, into the planets that form around the stars, and into the life forms that originate on the planets. Moreover, the energy we depend on for life originates in nuclear reactions that occur at the center of the Sun. Synthesis of the elements and energy production in stars are at the heart of our research in nuclear astrophysics.

Our understanding of these processes has seen extraordinary progress over the past 75 years. Early crucial insights were provided by Hans Bethe (Nobel Prize 1967), Willy Fowler (Nobel Prize 1983), and collaborators. Today, nuclear astrophysics constitutes a multidisciplinary crucible of knowledge addressing key questions in fundamental research, ranging from the age of the Universe to the origin of cosmic rays, from supernova explosion mechanisms to the origin of the solar system. New tools and developments have recently revolutionized our understanding of the origin of the elements: supercomputers provide astrophysicists with the required computational capabilities to study the evolution of stars in a multidimensional framework; the emergence of high-energy astrophysics with space-borne observatories opens new windows to observe the Universe from a novel panchromatic perspective; cosmochemists isolate tiny pieces of stardust embedded in primitive meteorites, giving clues about the processes operating in stars as well as about how matter condenses to form solids; and nuclear physicists measure ever smaller reaction cross sections near stellar energies, through combined efforts using stable beam and radioactive ion beam facilities. The perennial problem in nuclear astrophysics involves estimating the thermonuclear reaction rates, which are measures for the probability with which nuclear reactions occur at a given stellar temperature. Only a detailed understanding of the reaction rates can enable us to predict the nucleosynthesis and the nuclear pathways.

You can find more information on nuclear astrophysics in the following resources:

Click on the top right image for a popular description published in UNC’s Endeavors Magazine.

An introduction to nuclear astrophysics on an advanced undergraduate student level was prepared for an international research school.

A review article on a graduate student level was co-authored with our collaborator Prof. Jordi Jose (Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya/Barcelona) and can be accessed by clicking on the middle right image.

Finally, more information on the textbook Nuclear Physics of Stars, written for graduate students and researchers, can be found by clicking on the lower right image.