Nuclear astrophysics with exotic and stable ion beams

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How do the properties of atomic nuclei affect the stars? What is the origin of the elements that make up our world and us? My research focuses on measuring in the laboratory the nuclear processes and properties required to answer this question. We now know that nuclear processes are responsible for the starlight that we see, and for producing almost all the chemical elements around us, including the ones that make up our bodies. In particular, many of the elements heavier than iron must be made in stars that are extremely hot, up to a billion degrees, and these temperatures can only be found in certain stellar explosions, such as supernovae, novae, and X-ray bursts, for example. At these temperatures, the atomic nuclei that determine the energy generation and the nucleosynthesis are not the familiar, stable ones, but rather are unstable nuclei that, once formed, decay away quickly. Experimental information on how these unstable nuclei behave is crucial for our understanding of how these explosions happen, but they are extremely difficult to produce in the laboratory. This nuclear physics information, together with improvements in the modeling and observations of these exploding stars, will help us understand how they happen, thereby elucidating a piece of our own cosmic history.