The LUNA experiment: studying stars by going underground

par Alessandra Guglielmetti (Universita' degli Studi di Milano and INFN)

mardi 27 nov. 2012, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Paris

Amphithéâtre (CPPM)

Cross sections of nuclear reactions powering stars are essential ingredients for element nucleosynthesis, energy generation and neutrino fluxes in stellar environments. The low value of such cross sections at astrophysically relevant energies prevents their measurement in a laboratory at the Earth's surface due to the unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio. The LUNA collaboration installed two accelerators in the Underground Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy where the cosmic background is very much reduced and measured a few key reactions of the Hydrogen burning and Big Bang nucleosynthesis. After a general introduction on nuclear astrophysics, the most relevant results achieved by LUNA will be reviewed and the future possibilities such as the LUNA MV project described

Transparents guglielmetti_Marseille2012_fin.pdf