Nuclear Astrophysics in Storage Rings

Nuclear reaction cross sections are usually very small in typical astrophysical environments. It has been one of the major challenges of experimental nuclear astrophysics to assess the magnitude of these cross sections in the laboratory. For a successful experiment high luminosity beams are needed. Increasing the target width, one also increases the reaction yields. But, this is of limited use due to multiple scattering in the target. Storage rings are a very good way to overcome these difficulties. In principle, they can be tuned to large luminosities, and have the advantage of crossing the interaction region many times per second (typically one million/s), compensating low density internal gas targets, or low reaction rates in beam-beam collisions. Storage rings are also ideal tools for precise measurements of masses and beta-decay lifetimes of nuclei of relevance for astrophysics.