Session KB: Undergraduate Physics Seminar II

Understanding Stellar Explosions on Neutron Stars using Nuclear Physics

The elemental abundances we observe in our Solar System are the result of a wide variety of nuclear processes that occur in different stellar environments and explosions. Some of the most extreme explosions involve neutron stars, with Type I X-ray bursts producing proton-rich nuclei up to mass 100 and neutron star mergers producing heavy neutron-rich nuclei far from stability. Understanding the nuclear physics processes that occur in these exotic environments is necessary to explain these stellar events and the synthesis of various elements. In this talk I will describe the nucleosynthesis that occurs in explosions involving neutron stars, discuss some of the experimental techniques used to measure the nuclear process responsible for this nucleosynthesis, and present some recent experimental results.