Bonn 2020 – scientific programme

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HK: Fachverband Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 11: Invited Talks II

HK 11.1: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 31, 2020, 11:00–11:30, H-HS X

Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics Underground: The LUNA and LUNA-MV experiments — •Rosanna Depalo for the LUNA collaboration — Università degli Studi di Padova and INFN Padova

The cross sections of nuclear reactions relevant for astrophysics are crucial ingredients to understand the energy generation inside stars and the synthesis of the elements. In stars, nuclear reactions take place at energies well below the Coulomb barrier. As a result, their cross sections are often too small to be measured in laboratories on the Earth's surface, where the signal would be overwhelmed by the cosmic-ray induced background. An effective way to suppress the cosmic-ray induced background is to perform experiments in underground laboratories. LUNA is a unique facility located at Gran Sasso National Laboratories (Italy) and devoted to Nuclear Astrophysics. The extremely low background achieved at LUNA allows to measure nuclear cross sections directly at the energies of astrophysical interest.

Over the years, many crucial reactions involved in stellar hydrogen burning as well as Big Bang Nucleosynthesis have been measured at LUNA. The presentation will provide an overview on underground Nuclear Astrophysics and discuss the latest results and future perspectives of the LUNA experiment.