Nuclear Structure Aspects in Nuclear Astrophysics

Abstract：

Nuclear structure information plays an extremely important role in studies of the evolution and explosion of stars and the cosmic synthesis of the elements. Properties of nuclear ground states (e.g., masses, lifetimes, decay branches) and low-lying resonances (excitation energies, spins, parities, decay widths, spectroscopic factors), especially on unstable nuclei, can quantitatively and qualitatively change predictions of astrophysical simulations. The location of the particle driplines and shell structure far from stability also strongly influence our astrophysical predictions. A number of examples of the dramatic impact that new nuclear structure information has on simulations of nova explosions, X-ray bursts, and core collapse supernovae are given. Some of these are results of recent measurements with radioactive ¹⁸F, ⁸²Ge, and ⁸⁴Se beams at ORNL's Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility. A new suite of software tools to help determine the astrophysical impact of nuclear physics studies will also be presented.