This award provides funding for the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA). The Institute acts as a broad forum for a collaborative and synergistic approach in addressing two fundamental problems posed in Nuclear Astrophysics, The Origin of the Elements and the fate of matter at the extreme conditions of Neutron Star Laboratories. JINA involves scientists from three universities, the University of Chicago, Michigan State University and the University of Notre Dame, in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory, the SciDAC Center at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the University of Arizona, and the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The JINA collaboration represents a spectrum of nuclear astrophysics experimentalists, modelers, and observers who focus their research programs on two fundamental research components and related problems. The first research component focuses on the laboratory and computational aspects of the associated nucleosynthesis processes. The second research component is focused on exploring the rapid nucleosynthesis during the thermonuclear runaways in the outer atmosphere of accreting neutron stars and the fate of their ashes in the deeper layers of the neutron star crust.
JINA will organize an extensive series of workshops and exchanges of visitors as well as students with leading groups and institutes in all relevant fields in the US and worldwide. This allows JINA to address the open questions in nuclear astrophysics in a cross-disciplinary, coherent approach and to solve the relevant astrophysical and nuclear problems simultaneously. For nuclear astrophysics, such an approach is essential, as various aspects of the field are connected in complex and sometimes unexpected ways. A key element in JINA is an interdisciplinary educational program. Exchange of junior researchers between the associated institutions is a key in overcoming traditional field boundaries. An extensive outreach program addresses the public and helps to attract young people to pursue a career in science.
This award is co-funded by the Physics Division and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.
