Direct measurements of radiative cross section of Astrophysical interest

New direct experimental methods and techniques, combined with the development of new theoretical tools have opened new avenues to explore nuclear reactions of significance for nucleosynthesis at or near the actual temperatures of stellar burning.
The main problem of direct measurements is determined by the background signals,  which, together with the low cross sections, set a limit to the energy range that can be investigated with a simple setup on the Earth surface. Essentially there are three sources of background, i.e. cosmic rays, environmental radioactivity and beam-target induced nuclear reactions. Each of these sources produces background of different nature and energy, so that each reaction to be studied deserves a special care in suppressing the relevant background component.
The best solution so far was to install an accelerator facility in a deep underground laboratory, in a similar way to solar neutrino detectors. This
has been the approach of LUNA (Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics) experiment.
I will report about the results of this experiment.

ersona di contatto:Giuseppe Tagliente   This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Relatore:Dr Imbriani - Università di Napoli