Physics – Nuclear Physics
Scientific paper
Apr 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001fpu..conf...25b&link_type=abstract
FROM PARTICLES TO THE UNIVERSE. Proceedings of the Fifteenth Lake Louise Winter Institute. Held 20-26 February 2000 in Lake Loui
Physics
Nuclear Physics
Scientific paper
Nuclear astrophysics utilizes the basic concepts of nuclear physics and astrophysics to relate the observed abundances of the nuclides to the processes that synthesize them. This approach has produced an understanding of the properties stars must have at each stage of their evolution in order to perform the nucleosynthesis ascribed to them. Because the nuclei to which experimental nuclear physicists had access in the past were either stable or nearly so, the stellar processes that were well studied tended to be those that operated slowly, i.e., at relatively low temperatures, and hence within the stable or long-lived nuclei. However, nature has never been constrained to the nuclei near the valley of stability. Thus the advent of radioactive nuclear beams has greatly increased the nuclei and, hence, the stellar processes, available for study. These involve short-lived nuclei which may have occurred both during big bang nucleosynthesis and in high-temperature stellar processes. Thus, with the exception of a few long-standing problems, the nuclear astrophysics of the next millenium would be expected to expand to the high-temperature, and often explosive, conditions in which short-lived nuclei dominate the processes that occur. This treatise provides some background on the topics that are traditional to nuclear astrophysics, then refers to existing textbooks and review articles for additional detail. This is in the interest of devoting a significant fraction of the discussion to modern topics in nuclear astrophysics. It is hoped that this approach will give a sample both of the field's history and of its near-future directions.
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