30th Carpathian Summer School of Physics Announced for July 2023

The 30th edition of the Carpathian Summer School of Physics 2023 is scheduled to take place in Sinaia on July 2-15, 2023, as an in-person event.

The school on “Exotic Nuclei and Nuclear/Particle Astrophysics. Physics with small accelerators” will feature a combination of school-like and conference-like presentations, with longer invited lectures by senior scientists/professors and shorter student communications. The school is aimed at graduate students, post-docs and young or established researchers. Students from all countries are invited to attend. A limited number of stipends to cover the local expenses for students will be available.

Further Information can be found in the first circular of the school, or on the school website at https://cssp23.nipne.ro/.

The school is part of the ENNAS (European Network of Nuclear Astrophysics Schools), supported by ChETEC-INFRA, and recognized by the Division of Nuclear Physics of EPS.

Video Tutorial Online on Multi-Zone Post-Processing Code on HPC Clusters

Continuing the series on Stellar Nucleosynthesis Tools for HPC Clusters, a new video is now available. The tutorial on installing and running the program mppnp by the NuGrid collaboration in a cluster environment is available on the ChETEC-INFRA YouTube channel, as part of this play list (external link to youtube.com).

The video series is part of the resources provided to the nuclear astrophysics community through ChETEC-INFRA. An overview of the various resources is provided here.

Next Edition of SNAQs, Schools on Nuclear Astrophysics Questions, on December 7

As limitations for in-person conferences are slowly lifted and travel to conferences, meetings, schools, and workshops is more common again, the SNAQs organizing committee decided adjust the format and calendar for future editions of these Schools on Nuclear Astrophysics Questions.

The new schedule foresees four editions of SNAQs per year, with a duration of less than 90 minutes. The focus of SNAQs remains on the multidisciplinary (astronomy, astrophysics, nuclear physics) audience of students and senior scientists.

The first SNAQs with this new format will be held on December 7, 2022. This school features two presentations, and time for Q&A.

European Low-Level Laboratories convene for CELLAR Community Meeting

Underground physics laboratories in Europe have been a driving force for progress in various domains. This includes nuclear and particle physics as well as low-background detector technologies, which are crucial for experimental studies of weak nuclear processes, such as those which are driving stellar evolution.

The three-day CELLAR Community Meeting 2022 (starting November 28), aims to provide updates on recent developments in this field and help to better network the participants of this community. The meeting is hosted by HZDR, VKTA and TU Dresden, and supported by ChETEC-INFRA.

Call for Transnational Access Projects Open until November 17

The next collection date for Transnational Access (TNA) Projects to the 13 ChETEC-INFRA Partner Facilities is November 17, 2022. TNA is open to researchers worldwide, providing access to accelerator laboratories, observatories, or a high-performance computing cluster for their scientific projects in Nuclear Astrophysics. – Without access costs to the user, and the possibility of travel support in the case of hands-on facilities.

More information on eligibility and how to apply for TNA is available here. Virtual office hours are held weekly on Zoom, available to discuss questions around the Transnational Access program.

ChETEC-INFRA TNA Event on October 24: Transnational Access and the PTB Ion Accelerator Facility (PIAF)

On Monday, October 24, 2022 at 16:00 – 16:45 (Brussels time) the next edition of the „ChETEC-INFRA TNA event“ will take place on Zoom: Meeting Link.

After an introduction outlining TNA in ChETEC-INFRA, the PTB Ion Accelerator Facility in Braunschweig, Germany, will be presented, and combined with a virtual tour of the laboratory. The remaining session will be available for Q&A. The event will be recorded, slides and the recordings will be made available.

Questions and inquiries on Transnational Access can also be addressed during the drop-in Office Hours via Zoom.

Hands-On Training for Young Nuclear Astrophysicists at Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics X School

On the 3rd of September 2022, the ChETEC-INFRA Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics X school was concluded. The school took place at CERN (Geneva), and hosted 32 students or young post-docs (~50% females) from 13 Countries. The school was one of a kind, combining lectures and hands-on activities. Students had the chance to learn first-hand how to develop a Nuclear Astrophysics Masterclass, how to predict galactic chemical evolution with the OMEGA code, and how to plan an astronomical observation. Although observations at the Nordic Optical Telescope were not possible due to bad weather, the students still spent the night analyzing stellar spectra to derive chemical abundances.

Lecturers and participants of the NPA-X school. (Credit: NPA-X School)

In the framework of the school we also organized a public lecture entitled: “Our Milky Way seen by the GAIA Mission” at the Globe of Science and Innovation. The lecture was given by Laurent Eyer, Maître d’enseignement et de recherche at the Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva, and Leader of the Gaia variability processing and analysis. The event, supported by CERN & Society Foundation, was big success, with more than 210 participants! A recording of the lecture is available at:

Laurent Eyer: “Our Milky Way Seen by the GAIA Mission”

Solar Fusion III Workshop

The Solar Fusion III workshop (SF-III) took place from July 26-29, 2022, at Berkeley (USA) under the sponsorship of ChETEC-INFRA, the NSF network N3AS and the Institute for Nuclear Theory (USA). Initially scheduled for 2020, ten years after the previous SF-II workshop, SF-III brought together experimentalists and theoreticians working on hydrogen burning nuclear reactions with the final goal of setting a new set of consensus reaction rates appropriate for solar and stellar evolution models.

In total, 55 scientists from 12 countries took part in the workshop. The activities at the workshop were split across 9 Working Groups (WGs), focusing on specific nuclear reactions (or groups of nuclear reactions) with each participant being able to join up to 3 different WGs according to interests and expertise. WGs presented the state-of-the-art of the field in plenary talks, and then followed their activities by individual meetings. Final summaries were presented on the last day. A full schedule and presentation slides is available at the workshop web site.

Solar Fusion III Participants in Berkeley (Credit: Solar Fusion III)

During the workshop, the WGs have reviewed developments that happened during the last decade and have established the roadmap for the post-workshop activities. The final goal of the workshop is to provide the community with a new generation of nuclear cross sections that take into consideration the advancements in the field since SF-II in 2010. Results will be published in a review article.

In the context of ChETEC-INFRA, the activities at the workshop are of central relevance, in particular to activities in the Astronuclear Library (NA3/WP8) network which aims at providing standardized nuclear reaction rates for hydrogen burning.

New Video on HPC Stellar Nucleosynthesis Tools

The next video of the series on Stellar Nucleosynthesis Tools for HPC Clusters is now available. The tutorial on SE Outputs from MESA for Postprocessing is available on the ChETEC-INFRA channel on YouTube, or as part of this play list (external link to youtube.com).

The video series is part of the resources provided to the community through the actions of ChETEC-INFRA. An overview of the various resources is provided on this page.

ChETEC-INFRA Meets for Second General Assembly in Padova

One year after the first general assembly of ChETEC-INFRA in 2021 was held online, the second assembly now took place in hybrid mode.

Held in the center of Padua (Italy), the program of the meeting included presentations on developments in nuclear astrophysics, as well as talks on highlights of the individual ChETEC-INFRA Work Packages and user reports on selected Transnational Access proposals. Neighboring networks from North America, Asia, and within Europe were also part of the conference program.

With 87 registered participants, and more than 50 participants on site, the assembly brought members from within the consortium, TNA users and representatives of neighboring networks together, and provided the opportunity to discuss the activities of ChETEC-INFRA and their future developments.