NUSTAR/ENNA
The scientific activity carried out by scientist of the NUSTAR research branch at GSI is summarized by its very same name: NUclear STructure, Astrophysics, and nuclear Reactions. These main fields of investigations are linked together by a common working place: the unique technical infrastructure at GSI, with its accelerators and rings complex, and its high-resolution magnetic spectrometer, the Fragment Separator (FRS). Thanks to this experimental infrastructure, beams of unstable nuclei are available and the properties of nuclei very far from the valley of stability can be studied in detailed.
Such studies allow us to address a large range of essential questions concerning nuclear structure and dynamics, nuclear astrophysics, tests of fundamental interactions and symmetries as well as new applications in different fields. Specifically:
- Limits of stability up to the heaviest elements
- Magic numbers and shell structure far-off stability, neutron skins and neutron matter
- Detailed understanding of the strong force, isospin dependence, unique nuclear model
- New phenomena, new decay modes
- Stellar nucleosynthesis, abundances of elements, age and origin of chemical elements
- Possible application of nuclear physics to other fields (medicine, energy)
NUSTAR departments are actively working also for the upcoming International Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR), together with the NUSTAR international collaboration, the community planning to use the beams of exotic nuclei at FAIR.