Nuclear Astrophysics

Nuclear astrophysics is the union of nuclear physics and astronomy. The purpose of the course is to introduce the emerging field of nuclear astrophysics; a discipline that can identify new observational signatures probing our universe. This discipline has proved to have the potential to categorize the conditions at the core of stars and provide information of energy production from stars, nucleosynthesis and stellar evolution. New initiatives in this domain include the development of experimental facilities (Ex: FRENA in SINP Kolkata), that open new landscapes into the nuclear processes that take place at low energies during the evolutionary phases of stars and in explosive events in galaxies.INTENDED AUDIENCE :Physics, Engineering PhysicsPRE-REQUISITE :Nuclear Physics (basic)INDUSTRY SUPPORT :Companies involved in manufacturing of radiation detectors, pulse processing modules, photo sensors, target materials for nuclear reactions, data acquisition systems:Electronic Enterprises (India) Private Limited; Saint Gobain crystals and detector; CAEN; Hamamatsu Photonics; ORTEC; Nucleonix Systems Pvt. India Ltd.

Week 1:Selected features of astronomy ‘observing the universe’ and of astrophysics ‘explaining the universe’Week 2:General characteristics of thermonuclear reactions, sources of nuclear energy, Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution
Week 3:Cross section, stellar reaction rates, mean lifetime; astrophysical s – factor, abundance evolution
Week 4:Neutron and charged particle induced non-resonant reactions, reactions through narrow and broad resonancesWeek 5:p-p chain, CNO, NeNa and MgAl cyclesWeek 6:Creation and survival of 12C, Nucleosynthesis beyond iron peak (s – process, r – process, p – process)Week 7:General aspects of experiments: Accelerators for beams of charged particles, neutrons and gamma rays, detectors, target materials, electronic pulse processing modulesWeek 8:Experimental methods to study nuclear astrophysics: Activity method, Coulomb dissociation, Trojan Horse and ANC methods; radioactive ion beams