LUNA: a Laboratory for Underground Nuclear Astrophysics

TL;DR

LUNA is an underground laboratory dedicated to studying nuclear fusion reactions relevant to astrophysics, enabling precise laboratory measurements of processes that are otherwise inaccessible, thereby advancing our understanding of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis.

Contribution

This paper introduces the LUNA underground accelerator facility and discusses its experimental approach for studying nuclear fusion reactions in astrophysics.

Findings

Enhanced measurement precision due to underground location

Successful detection of low-energy fusion reactions

Improved understanding of stellar nucleosynthesis processes

Abstract

It is in the nature of astrophysics that many of the processes and objects one tries to understand are physically inaccessible. Thus, it is important that those aspects that can be studied in the laboratory be rather well understood. One such aspect are the nuclear fusion reactions, which are at the heart of nuclear astrophysics. They influence sensitively the nucleosynthesis of the elements in the earliest stages of the universe and in all the objects formed thereafter, and control the associated energy generation, neutrino luminosity, and evolution of stars. We review an experimental approach for the study of nuclear fusion reactions based on an underground accelerator laboratory, named LUNA.