WNSL Nuclear Astrophysics Group

The study of nuclear reaction rates in explosive astrophysical environments is one of the important frontiers of nuclear astrophysics [e.g., M. Wiescher, H. Schatz, and A.E. Champagne, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London A 356 (1998) 2105]. Observations suggest that nova explosions and x-ray bursts occur in close binaries in which the hydrogen-rich material from the outer layers of an extended star is overflowing its Roche lobe and accreting onto the surface of its companion, a white dwarf or a neutron star, respectively. In such explosive events, the temperatures and densities involved are sufficiently high so that proton and alpha-particle induced nuclear reactions can be fast enough to bypass beta-decay processes. These nuclear reactions involving radioactive nuclei can greatly increase both the rate of energy generation and the total amount of energy produced and can have a dramatic impact on both the isotopic and elemental abundances produced.