Europe to build state of the art laboratory

Both stable and unstable ion beams are powerful tools to study the process of nucleosynthesis, in which chemical elements are created by thermonuclear reactions, or other nuclear processes involving beams of neutrons. “By studying these nuclear reactions, astrophysicists attempt to reconstruct the signatures of the various nucleosynthetic processes that take place throughout the universe, and what happens as stars are born, evolve and then die,” said Harissopulos.

There is a particular interest in what happens at the end of a star’s life, especially when this produces a supernova in a great expanding shock wave. All these processes taken together also shed light on the larger scale evolution of galaxies, including our own. The European project planned by the ESF workshop could make substantial contributions on all these fronts.

The importance of stable ion-beams in nuclear physics research was independently documented in the recent scientific report produced by ECOS, the European Collaboration on Stable ion-beams (http://www.nupecc.org/ecos). ECOS has operated in the past two years as a working group of the Nuclear Physics European Collaboration Committee (NuPECC), which is the ESF’s expert committee for nuclear science. According to the ECOS report, “a low-energy and high-intensity stable-ion beam facility dedicated to nuclear astrophysics is seen as vitally important to improvement of our current understanding of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis. … Such a facility, built on the earth’s surface, will have to meet demanding specifications if it is to resolve outstanding open questions in nuclear astrophysics…” The ESF Workshop came up with ideas about how these recommendations can be achieved in the near future.

As Harissopulos noted, the workshop has fulfilled all the preliminary planning objectives. “The framework of the research to be conducted in the new facility as well as the specifications of the facility was identified. The experimental set ups and detectors systems that need to be embedded in the facility have also been defined. An expert committee for follow-up activities was assigned with the aim of producing a physics-case report and a basic design study for the new facility, as well as identifying initiatives at a European level that will lead to creation of this facility. The expert committee has recognized the decisive role of the ESF in promoting and supporting science initiatives.”

The ESF Workshop “The future of stable beams in Nuclear Astrophysics” took place at the Congress Centre of the National Centre for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Athens, Greece, from the 14th to the 15th December 2007. It was attended by 25 scientists from 10 different European countries.