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Nuclear Physics in the Cosmos

宇宙中的核物理

基本信息

批准号：
ST/J003468/2
负责人：
Gavin Lotay
金额：
$ 45.01万
依托单位：
University of Surrey
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2013
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2013 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FJ003468%2F2
关键词：
Nuclear Physics Cosmos

项目摘要

Since the dawn of mankind the human race has had a fascination with the stars but it's only in the last century that we have truly begun to understand their significance in answering our deepest of questions, "where do we come from?" In the early 1920s, it was suggested that nuclear reactions generate the energy that makes stars shine. These same nuclear reactions were then later discovered to be responsible for the creation of almost all of the chemical elements. When stars come to the end of their life cycles, their fuel finally spent, they can eject part or all of their matter into the Universe via stellar outbursts and cataclysmic explosions. This material provides the building blocks for the birth of new stars, of planets and of life itself. Our own Sun and its complement of planets were created from such material gathered from the debris of stellar ancestors. Thus, every living creature on Earth can be viewed as literally being made of stardust.Recent advances in astronomy and in the analysis of meteoritic inclusions have provided unprecedented observational data on astrophysical phenomena that enrich the Universe with their ejecta or outflow. In particular, pre-solar grains, tiny pieces of material found in meteorites, are revealing a wealth of information on the abundance of chemical elements produced in cataclysmic events, such as Supernovae, that occurred prior to the formation of the Solar System. In contrast, modern space-based telescopes provide a fresh insight into the properties of ongoing stellar processes occurring in our Galaxy. These two massive leaps in observational astronomy have broadened our knowledge of stellar environments tremendously. However, quite astonishingly, many key stages of stellar nucleosynthesis are still not fully understood, owing to uncertainties in the underlying nuclear reaction processes that drive the stellar outbursts. My research focuses on resolving these issues, by investigating the nuclear reactions involved in astrophysical environments, with the ultimate goal of allowing a meaningful comparison to be made between theoretical models and astronomical observations. It should be noted that the study of nuclear reactions that occur in stellar interiors is notoriously difficult for the experimenter. This is due to the formidable task of recreating the extreme conditions of stellar phenomena in a terrestrial laboratory. However, by using innovative experimental techniques, it is possible to bypass this problem and investigate the nuclear reactions of interest indirectly. These indirect investigations represent the bulk of my research programme. In each study, key nuclear physics information is obtained on the unstable end products of an astrophysical process and used to determine the rate at which the nuclear reaction takes place. These rates govern both the energy generation and path of nucleosynthesis in stellar environments and as such, have a strong influence on the observational properties of the astrophysical phenomena under investigation. This is an extremely exciting area of physics research, providing an interlinking between the fields of nuclear structure and reactions and astronomy and astrophysics.

自从人类诞生以来，人类就对星星着迷，但直到上个世纪，我们才真正开始理解星星在回答我们最深层次的问题“我们从哪里来？”“在20世纪20年代初，有人提出核反应产生的能量使恒星发光。这些核反应后来被发现是创造几乎所有化学元素的原因。当恒星走到生命周期的尽头，它们的燃料终于耗尽，它们可以通过恒星爆发和灾难性爆炸将部分或全部物质喷射到宇宙中。这种物质为新恒星、行星和生命本身的诞生提供了基石。我们自己的太阳和它的补充行星是由这些物质创造的，这些物质是从恒星祖先的碎片中收集来的。因此，地球上的每一个生物都可以被看作是由星尘组成的。天文学和陨石包裹体分析的最新进展为天体物理现象提供了前所未有的观测数据，这些天体物理现象通过它们的喷出物或流出物丰富了宇宙。特别是，太阳前颗粒，陨石中发现的微小物质，揭示了太阳系形成之前发生的超新星等灾难性事件中产生的化学元素丰度的丰富信息。相比之下，现代太空望远镜提供了一个新的洞察正在进行的恒星过程发生在我们的银河系的属性。观测天文学的这两次重大飞跃极大地拓宽了我们对恒星环境的认识。然而，由于驱动恒星爆发的核反应过程的不确定性，恒星核合成的许多关键阶段仍然没有完全理解。我的研究重点是解决这些问题，通过研究天体物理环境中涉及的核反应，最终目标是在理论模型和天文观测之间进行有意义的比较。应该指出的是，研究发生在恒星内部的核反应对实验者来说是出了名的困难。这是由于在地球实验室中重现恒星现象的极端条件的艰巨任务。然而，通过使用创新的实验技术，有可能绕过这个问题，间接地研究感兴趣的核反应。这些间接调查是我研究计划的主要部分。在每项研究中，获得了关于天体物理过程的不稳定最终产物的关键核物理信息，并用于确定核反应发生的速率。这些速率支配着恒星环境中核合成的能量产生和路径，因此，对正在调查的天体物理现象的观测性质有很大的影响。这是物理学研究的一个非常令人兴奋的领域，提供了核结构和反应以及天文学和天体物理学领域之间的相互联系。