Konrad Schmidt: X-ray bursts and the JENSA gas-jet target

Nuclear astrophysics investigates fundamental questions about the origin and the evolution of the chemical elements in the cosmos. This requires to study detailed features of atomic nuclei and to connect them with observations of stars and stellar explosions. An example of an explosive scenario is a type I X-ray burst that takes place on the surface of a neutron star accreting material from a binary companion. Important nuclear processes powering X-ray bursts are the triple-α reaction, the αp- and the rp-process. The Jet Experiments in Nuclear Structure and Astrophysics (JENSA) gas-jet target enables the direct measurement of previously inaccessible reactions with radioactive ion beams provided by the rare isotope re-accelerator ReA3 at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) on the campus of Michigan State University (MSU), USA. JENSA is going to be the main target for the Recoil Separator for Capture Reactions (SECAR) at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB).