New Discoveries in Stars and Stellar Evolution through Advances in Laboratory Astrophysics

TL;DR

This paper discusses how advances in laboratory astrophysics across six key areas will drive major scientific discoveries in stars and stellar evolution during 2010-2020, enabling progress in understanding various astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It identifies the critical role of laboratory astrophysics advances in enabling new scientific opportunities in stellar research for the decade 2010-2020.

Findings

Laboratory astrophysics advances are essential for progress in stellar physics.

Six key areas of laboratory astrophysics are identified as crucial.

The paper outlines scientific questions and discovery potentials for future research.

Abstract

As the Stars and Stellar Evolution (SSE) panel is fully aware, the next decade will see major advances in our understanding of these areas of research. To quote from their charge, these advances will occur in studies of the Sun as a star, stellar astrophysics, the structure and evolution of single and multiple stars, compact objects, SNe, gamma-ray bursts, solar neutrinos, and extreme physics on stellar scales. Central to the progress in these areas are the corresponding advances in laboratory astrophysics, required to fully realize the SSE scientific opportunities within the decade 2010-2020. Laboratory astrophysics comprises both theoretical and experimental studies of the underlying physics that produces the observed astrophysical processes. The 6 areas of laboratory astrophysics, which we have identified as relevant to the CFP panel, are atomic, molecular, solid matter, plasma, nuclear physics, and particle physics. In this white paper, we describe in Section 2 the scientific context and some of the new scientific opportunities and compelling scientific themes which will be enabled by advances in laboratory astrophysics. In Section 3, we discuss some of the experimental and theoretical advances in laboratory astrophysics required to realize the SSE scientific opportunities of the next decade. As requested in the Call for White Papers, Section 4 presents four central questions and one area with unusual discovery potential. Lastly, we give a short postlude in Section 5.