U.S.-Romania-Poland Planning for Cooperative Research in Nuclear Astrophysics at the Exteme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics(ELI-NP)Facility in Bucharest, Romania

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Through a set of catalytic activities U.S. scientists at the University of Connecticut and Duke University intend to forge a long-term partnership for studies in nuclear astrophysics with international collaborators in Poland and Romania. The U.S. principal investigator, Moshe Gai, and Henry Weller of Duke University will cooperate with counterparts Wojciech Dominik, at the University of Warsaw, and Ovidiu Tesilean, at the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) being constructed near Bucharest. Together, they will prepare the groundwork for new basic research in nuclear astrophysics and use of the gamma-ray beam facility of the ELI-NP in Magurele-Bucharest, Romania. This cooperation aims to leverage significant European Union investments in experimental ELI infrastructure while engaging U.S. expertise in the design of an electronic Time Projection Chamber (eTPC) detector and gas recycling system. For broader impact, breakthroughs that eventually contribute to a high-end gas recycling and purification system could yield ideas for future industrial applications. Because one U.S. postdoctoral student will participate in the early simulations and detector design, other benefits include early career engagement in this forefront U.S.-European teamwork. If successful, preliminary results should contribute to new concepts for detector technology capable of providing a highly precise determination of an important astrophysical quantity, the carbon-to-oxygen ratio in stellar helium burning. This collaboration presents a unique opportunity to link use of a new laser facility and planning for a new detector with a new novel u-v-w electronic Readout, developed in Warsaw for measuring x-ray emissions. After completed construction and with additional research support, results should allow scientists to determine photo nuclear cross sections for center-of-momentum energies lower than those investigated at the High Intensity gamma-ray Source (HIgS) facility in the U.S. The new data obtained can be expected to reduce the ambiguities in the astrophysical S-factors obtained at HIgS and therefore lead to determining a more precise carbon-to-oxygen ratio. The researchers hope that their new method may be applied to other important astrophysical reactions.