Related papers: Astrophysics with radioactive isotopes
Since the 1930s, and with very few exceptions, it has been assumed that the process of radioactive decay is a random process, unaffected by the environment in which the decaying nucleus resides. There have been instances within the past few…
This paper is a brief review of the status of the search for astrophysical neutrinos of high energy. Its emphasis is on the search for a hard spectrum of neutrinos from the whole Northern sky above the steeply falling background of…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved astrophysical questions. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely to be associated with the most energetic…
The chemical elements are created in nuclear fusion processes in the hot and dense cores of stars. The energy generated through nucleosynthesis allows stars to shine for billions of years. When these stars explode as massive supernovae, the…
A selected overview of stellar effects and reaction mechanisms with relevance to the prediction of astrophysical reaction rates far off stability is provided.
The determination of astrophysical reaction rates requires different approaches depending on the conditions in hydrostatic and explosive burning. The focus here is on astrophysical reaction rates for radiative neutron capture reactions.…
Our knowledge of the Universe remains discovery-led: in the absence of adequate physics-based theory, interpretation of new results requires a scientific methodology. Commonly, scientific progress in astrophysics is motivated by the…
Some problems in nuclear astrophysics are discussed with emphasize on the ones central to the field which were not solved over the last two decades, including Helium Burning in Massive stars (the 12C(a,g)16O reaction) and the 8B Solar…
With each passing decade, we gain new appreciation for the dynamic, connected, and often violent nature of the Universe. This reality necessarily places the study of high-energy processes at the very heart of modern astrophysics. This White…
The origin of cosmic rays is one of the major unresolved questions in astrophysics. In particular, the highest energy cosmic rays observed possess macroscopic energies and their origin is likely associated with the most energetic processes…
Cosmological stasis is a new type of epoch in the cosmological timeline during which the cosmological abundances of different energy components -- such as vacuum energy, matter, and radiation -- remain constant despite the expansion of the…
The primary aim of experimental nuclear astrophysics is to determine the rates of nuclear reactions taking place in stars in various astrophysical conditions. These reaction rates are important ingredient for understanding the elemental…
Radio pulsars are unique laboratories for a wide range of physics and astrophysics. Understanding how they are created, how they evolve and where we find them in the Galaxy, with or without binary companions, is highly constraining of…
Nuclear gamma-ray lines constitute the most genuine diagnostic tool of nuclear astrophysics, since they allow for an unambiguous identification of isotopic species. Continuous improvement in instrumentation led to the discovery of several…
The astrophysical site or sites responsible for the r-process of nucleosynthesis still remains an enigma. Since the rare earth region is formed in the latter stages of the r-process it provides a unique probe of the astrophysical conditions…
This chapter presents a (partial) review of the information we can derive on the early history of the Solar System from radioactive nuclei of very different half-life, which were recognized to have been present alive in pristine solids. In…
For a long time very little experimental information was available about neutrino properties, even though a minute neutrino mass has intriguing cosmological and astrophysical implications. This situation has changed in recent decades:…
In the first part of this review we discuss the basic observational features at the end of the cosmic ray energy spectrum. We also present there the main characteristics of each of the experiments involved in the detection of these…
Experimental measurements in terrestrial laboratory, space and astrophysical observations of variation and fluctuation of nuclear decay constants, measurements of large enhancements in fusion reaction rate of deuterons implanted in metals…
The astrophysical rapid neutron capture process or `$r$ process' of nucleosynthesis is believed to be responsible for the production of approximately half the heavy element abundances found in nature. This multifaceted problem remains one…