Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics

University Of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN

Investigators

Abstract

PROPOSAL NUMBER: 0758100 INSTITUTION: University of Notre Dame NSF PROGRAM: PHY ? LOW ENERGY NUCLEAR SCIENCE and NUCLEAR ASTROPHYSICS PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR: Wiescher, Michael TITLE: Nuclear Structure and Nuclear Astrophysics ABSTRACT This award provides funds for continuing support of research at the University of Notre Dame Nuclear Science Laboratory. The laboratory presently operates three accelerators and maintains an active research program in nuclear astrophysics and nuclear structure physics. While interdisciplinary research opportunities have introduced new user groups with different objectives to the laboratory, the nuclear group itself has maintained strong focus on its core program in low energy nuclear physics. Nuclear astrophysics has emerged as the main research direction, taking advantage of all three accelerators. New equipment has been developed which will provide new opportunities to investigate very low energy cross sections of reactions relevant for stellar burning. Studies range from the direct measurement of nuclear reactions during stellar thermonuclear burning to the experimental and theoretical investigation of nuclear processes far from stability which are relevant for the study of nucleosynthesis in explosive stellar scenarios such as core collapse supernovae to cataclysmic binary stars. The nuclear structure program has focused on aspects closely correlated to nuclear astrophysics questions such as the determination of nuclear masses and decay times for far off stability isotopes, the nuclear properties of weakly bound systems, the measurement of nuclear incompressibility, and the study of rare nucleosynthesis processes using accelerator mass spectroscopy (AMS). An increasingly important initiative is the study of the fate of nuclear matter at high densities, ranging from pycnonuclear burning to the determination of the incompressibility of nuclear matter. Parallel to these efforts new applied programs such as PIXE and AMS have been developed which are presently being utilized for applications in Art, Archaeology, and Anthropology, in Oceanography, and in the search of new forms of matter (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles). The laboratory provides an ideal recruitment and training environment for undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, the lab involves RET teachers and REU students in various research projects over the summer.