Münster 2011 – scientific programme
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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne
HK 18: Nukleare Astrophysik I
HK 18.5: Talk
Tuesday, March 22, 2011, 15:15–15:30, HS3
A possible underground accelerator in the Dresden Felsenkeller — •Daniel Bemmerer1, Thomas Cowan1,2, Tamás Szücs1,3, and Kai Zuber2 — 1Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (FZD), Dresden — 2TU Dresden — 3ATOMKI, Debrecen, Ungarn
Due to the suppression by the Coulomb barrier, the cross section of astrophysically relevant nuclear reactions is very low at the stellar energy. Therefore it can only be directly measured in a low-background environment. For more than a decade, the LUNA collaboration has pursued this approach with a 0.4 MV accelerator in the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy. It was highly successful in studying nuclear reactions in the Sun and in the Big Bang. However, the energy range of LUNA is not sufficient to address the nuclear reactions of stellar helium burning and the neutron source reactions for the astrophysical s-process. Therefore, in the NuPECC 2010 draft long range plan it is recommended to install one or more higher energy accelerators underground. A dedicated comparison of the background at LUNA (1400 m rock cover) and the Dresden Felsenkeller (45 m) has shown that with an anti-muon veto the background counting rates in a γ-detector differ only by a factor of three. The feasibility of installing a 2-3 MV accelerator for intensive α-beams in Felsenkeller is discussed.