We show that the synthesis of carbon and oxygen through the triple-alpha
process in red giant stars is extremely sensitive to the fine details of the
nucleon-nucleon (N-N) interaction. A +/-0.5% change in the strength of the N-N
force would reduce either the carbon or oxygen abundance by as much as a factor
of 30-1000. This result may be used to constrain some fundamental parameters of
the Standard Model.Comment: 3 pages with 2 figures. Proceedings of the Nuclei in the Cosmos
Conference, Aarhus, Denmark, June 27-July 1, 2000. To be published in Nuclear
Physics A. The postscript file and more information are available at
http://matrix.elte.hu/~csoto http://info.tuwien.ac.at/e142/ and
http://www.MPA-Garching.MPG.DE/~schlattl
