A new era of nuclear astrophysics research in China

Abstract

Nuclear astrophysics is a rapidly-growing interdisciplinary branch of physics involving a close collaboration among researchers in nuclear physics, astrophysics, and observational astronomy. The origin and fate of matter in our Universe are the primary questions in the nuclear astrophysics research [1,2], which, to large extent, have not been understood. In particular, the question of how heavy elements in the Universe (those heavier than iron) were created is one of the major unsolved puzzles in physics [3]. The above-men- tioned fields are connected together because many important signatures of the microscopic nuclear processes of element production can directly be observed in cosmic phenomena. For example, the light curves of supernova and X-ray burst explosions contain information on the energy release from nuclear reactions [4]. Freshly-synthesized elements through various nuclear processes in stars can be detected through atomic absorption and emission lines, or, in some radioactive species, through characteristic gamma radiation. Thus, our desire of understanding the cosmos on the femto-scale while interpreting astrophysical observations on the tera-scale [5] creates a momentum which has propelled the field of nuclear astrophysics to the research forefront. Moreover, since most of the astrophysical processes of nucleosynthesis take place along the lines of extremely unstable nuclei in the nuclear chart, our knowledge on the basic nuclear properties has to be extended to those exotic nuclei, which is by itself a frontier of nuclear physics.