München 2019 – scientific programme

Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Updates | Downloads | Help

HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 54: Poster

HK 54.32: Poster

Thursday, March 21, 2019, 16:30–19:00, Foyer Theresanium

Plasma screening effects in laser-generated plasmas — •David Elsing, Adriana Pálffy, and Yuanbin Wu — Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg

In hot and dense astrophysical plasmas, the reaction rate of nuclear reactions is modified by the plasma screening. Direct measurements of this effect in the laboratory, which would be vital for our understanding of nuclear processes occuring in stellar nucleosynthesis, remain until today very challenging. Upcoming petawatt laser facilities, such as the Extreme Light Infrastructure, could render such measurements possible, allowing the comparison of several theoretical models to experimental data [1].

Here we investigate theoretically four plasma screening models with focus on the quantum mechanical model [2] which we extend to low temperatures and laboratory conditions. The reactions considered are ¹³ C (α,n) ¹⁶ O, which is important in advanced stellar phases and in the s-process, as well as ⁷Li (d,α) α, which is relevant in the big bang nucleosynthesis. Our results show a rather large discrepancy between the investigated models at low temperatures and high densities.

[1] Y. Wu and A. Pálffy, Astrophys. J. 838, 55 (2017).

[2] A. V. Gruzinov and J. N. Bahcall, Astrophys. J. 504, 996 (1998).