Related papers: In Memory of Al Cameron
Astrochemistry is a discipline that studies physico-chemical processes in astrophysical environments. Such environments are characterized by conditions that are substantially different from those existing in usual chemical laboratories.…
Abdus Salam was a true master of 20th Century Theoretical Physics. Not only was he a pioneer of the Standard Model (for which he shared the Nobel Prize with S. Glashow and S.Weinberg), but he also (co)authored many other outstanding…
Simon van der Meer was a brilliant scientist and a true giant in the field of accelerators. His seminal contributions to accelerator science are essential to this day in our quest to satisfy the demands of modern particle physics. Whether…
Ronald Wilfrid Gurney is one of the lesser-known research students of the Cavendish Laboratory in the mid 1920s. Gurney made significant contributions to the application of quantum mechanics to problems related to tunneling of…
Fusion reactions with light nuclei play an essential role in understanding the energy production, the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements and the evolution of massive stars. The measurement of key fusion reactions at stellar energies is…
The nucleosynthesis in the first massive stars may be constrained by observing the surface composition of long-lived very iron-poor stars born around 10 billion years ago from material enriched by their ejecta. Many interesting clues on…
Born in Punjab (India) in December 1941, Balraj Singh is not only the single most prolific nuclear data evaluator and disseminator of nuclear structure and decay data with 148 evaluations in Nuclear Data Sheets -- 85 as the first and often…
Observational cosmology is on the verge of new discoveries that will change the essence of our world-view. The matter concerns origin of initial conditions and physics of dark matter.
The quest to comprehend how nuclear processes influence astrophysical phenomena is driving experimental and theoretical research programs worldwide. One of the main goals in nuclear astrophysics is to understand how energy is generated in…
The formation of stars, particularly the high-mass star formation, poses several still open questions. Nowadays, thanks to the most modern telescopes and instruments, we are able to observe and analyse many physical and chemical processes…
Not only did Turing help found one of the most exciting areas of modern science (computer science), but it may be that his contribution to our understanding of our physical reality is greater than we had hitherto supposed. Here I explore…
Stellar nucleosynthesis is an important nuclear physics phenomenon that is responsible for presently observed chemical elements and isotope abundances. It is also one of the corner stone hypotheses that provides basis for our understanding…
I discuss three open problems in astrophysics where nuclear physics can make important contributions: the solar abundance problem, dark matter particle detection, and the origin of the r-process elements.
The ongoing discussion about the atomic chemical composition of the Sun is commented on. The main focus in this review is on the deviation of the solar composition from that of most other solar-type stars in that its ratio of volatiles…
The solar system started to form about 4.56 Gyr ago and despite the long intervening time span, there still exist several clues about its formation. The three major sources for this information are meteorites, the present solar system…
The most important problem in fundamental physics is the description of the contents of the Universe. Today, we know that 95% thereof is totally unknown. Two thirds of that amount is the mysterious Dark Energy described in an interesting…
Joel Scherk (1946--1980) was an important early contributor to the development of string theory. Together with various collaborators, he made numerous profound and influential contributions to the subject throughout the decade of the 1970s.…
High-precision spectroscopy of large stellar samples plays a crucial role for several topical issues in astrophysics. Examples include studying the chemical structure and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy, tracing the origin of chemical…
In astrochemistry, computational methods play a crucial role in addressing fundamental astronomical questions. Interstellar molecules profoundly influence the chemistry and physics of the interstellar medium (ISM), playing pivotal roles in…
This review discusses recent results on the astrochemistry of (mostly high-mass) star-forming regions. After an introduction on the use of chemistry in astrophysics and some basic concepts of astrochemistry, specific results are presented.…