RESEARCH RESULTS & COMMUNICATION, and INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOPS on Nuclear Astrophysics
  • Origin of Elements Heavier than Fe (Roberto Gallino's 70th Anniversary) Sep 2008
  • 50 years of B2FH, Pasadena, Jul 2007
  • ECT Nuclear Astrophysics Trento 2004


    • Scope of this Website

    Astronomy with radioactivities as a subfield of nuclear astrophysics addresses the astrophysical potential of measurements of cosmic radioactive isotopes. Since the first detection of a cosmic radioactivity line back in the 60ies, almost 30 years of hard experimental effort has helped to advance this field into an astronomical regime of its own: Gamma-rays transmit radioactive decay to the observer most directly, and radioisotopes are most direct messengers from the nuclear processes in stellar interiors and explosive environments. But radioactivities also encode cosmic-ray history between sources and observations in near-earth space, and solar-system meteorites have been found to include traces of radioactive decay in grains which must have formed close to nucleosynthesis sites.
    Experimental techniques of today can image the sky in radioactivity gamma-rays to a precision sufficient to perform correlation studies with other astronomical sources. Even the radioactive motors of supernovae are at the rim of measurement capabilities through decay gamma-rays from shortlived Ni and Co. Young supernova remnants may show radioactivity afterglows from Ti decay, X-ray recombination lines may map the distribution of ejecta. Positrons produced from beta-unstable isotopes annihilate and produce a gamma-ray spectrum with a signature characterizing the annihilation environment. Charged-particle detectors capture and analyze isotopic distributions in regions of the solar system which are remote from the earth magnetic field distortions. Precision isotopic analyses in laboratories of solar and presolar grains isolated from meteorites and ranging in size down to microns in diameter has established a rich body of astronomical data. Supplementing these astronomical enterprises, radioactive-beam facilities have begun to provide nuclear-reaction cross sections in previously unexplored regimes far from the isotope valley of stability, needed for explosive nucleosynthesis. Furthermore, the evolution of computing facilities makes even multi-dimensional hydrodynamical modeling of stars and explosions with coupled large nuclear-reaction networks a feasible perspective, thus helping our interpretation and models of cosmic radioactivities.
    At this website, we provide links and information to workshops and conferences in this field, and to a subset of results. Though we have in mind a complete survey of the field, you should appreciate that our selections will unavoidably be biased from our perspective of gamma-ray astronomy.
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    This page is maintained by Roland Diehl
     improvement suggestions and comments are welcome!
    last update:- 10Mar2011