ESF Workshop

“The future of stable beams in Nuclear Astrophysics” NCSR “Demokritos”, Athens, Greece

December 14-15, 2007

Organizing Committee

S. Harissopulos (Convener), P. Demetriou, A. Lagoyannis

CONCLUSION # 1A severe number of indirect measurements have improved our knowledge of stellar evolution considerably. Yet, as their results suffer from model dependencies, they cannot replace the direct measurements. Hence direct measurements are still considered to provide the clearest signatures of many astrophysical phenomena.

CONCLUSION # 2

Unfortunately, leading nuclear astrophysics laboratories in Europe fulfilling certain requirements (high current low-energy stable beams, …) are already closed or will be closed in the near future, while others have been “transformed” into analytical laboratories or irradiation facilities in order to survive in a highly competitive environment, where the demand for industrial applications has washed out many basic research activities in the field of low-energy nuclear physics. As a result, a high-current stable beam facility for nuclear astrophysics studies in Europe is missing and there is an urgent need for Europe to create a new state-of-the art high-current facility equipped with advanced detection techniques.

CONCLUSION # 3

Europe has opened a new era in Nuclear Physics: New facilities providing intense radioactive beams, such as FAIR, SPIRAL2 and HI-ISOLDE will soon be able to host ambitious nuclear physics programs including astrophysically important projects requiring unstable ion-beams. The operation of such facilities will be realized due to a severe number of technological achievements. Some of these are necessary to be adapted by the new stable-beam facility for nuclear astrophysics. Hence, a strong interaction with the RIB-related scientific community is necessary.

The creation of a new low-energy high-current stable ion-beam facility for nuclear astrophysics is not competing to the Radioactive Ion-Beam facilities (RIB) existing in Europe or to those proposed to be created in the future. Instead, it complements and supports the physics programs of these facilities.

CONCLUSION # 4

Though, the new facility is of importance for the whole European scientific community the necessary funding for its creation is, comparatively to other projects of the same scientific impact, much smaller, i.e., of the order of 6-8 million Euros. As such, the funding of the new facility cannot be included as an individual project in, e.g. the European Roadmap for Research Infrastructures (ESFRI Roadmap). Therefore other funding options should be identified.

An expert committee for follow-up activities was assigned with the aim to

• produce a physics-case report and a basic design study • identify initiatives at a EU level leading to the creation of this facility.

The expert committee has recognized the decisive role of ESF and NuPECC in promoting and supporting science initiatives and expressed the interest to launch activities under the guidance of ESF and especially of NuPECC

Accelerators for nuclear astrophysics

ESF Workshop on The future of stable beams in Nuclear Astrophysics, Athens, Dec. 14-15, 2007