7 research outputs found
LUNA: a Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics
It is in the nature of astrophysics that many of the processes and objects
one tries to understand are physically inaccessible. Thus, it is important that
those aspects that can be studied in the laboratory be rather well understood.
One such aspect are the nuclear fusion reactions, which are at the heart of
nuclear astrophysics. They influence sensitively the nucleosynthesis of the
elements in the earliest stages of the universe and in all the objects formed
thereafter, and control the associated energy generation, neutrino luminosity,
and evolution of stars. We review an experimental approach for the study of
nuclear fusion reactions based on an underground accelerator laboratory, named
LUNA.Comment: Invited Review; accepted for publication in Reports on Progress in
Physics; 26 pages; 27 figure