The course is taught in English by
Gabriel Martinez-Pinedo, Tel. 06159 71 2750, g.martinez at gsi.de, Schlossgartenstraße 2, room 304

It covers fundamental theoretical aspects of Nuclear Astrophysics.

Main topics include:

0. Course description
1. Introduction
• Lecture 01: Introduction,
  Additional Material: Physical Constants, Astrophysical Constants
• Lecture 02: Basic Thermodynamic concepts,
  Additional Material: Atomic masses from the 2020 Atomic Mass Evaluation
  Nuclear Statistical Equilibrium code. For additional information read the included README file. The code includes a rather complete Equation of State.
• Lecture 03: Rections in astrophysical environments: nuclear reaction networks,
2. Primordial Nucleosynthesis
• Lecture 04: Cosmological Model: basic ideas (Slides, Notes, )
• Lecture 05: Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (Notes,Slides,)
  Further reading:
  R. H. Cyburt, B. D. Fields, K. A. Olive, and T.-H. Yeh, Big bang nucleosynthesis: Present status, Rev. Mod. Phys. 88, 15004 (2016)
  V. Mukhanov, Nucleosynthesis Without a Computer, Int. J. Theor. Phys. 43, 669 (2004)
• Additional material:
  • Mathematica Notebook for a BBN calculation (pdf version)
  • Public Algorithm Evaluating the Nucleosynthesis of Primordial Elements (PArthENoPE): a numerical code which computes the abundances of light nuclides produced during Big Bang Nucleosynthesis.
3. Thermonuclear Reactions in Stars
• Lecture 06: Nuclear reactions cross sections (Notes part 1, Notes Part 2, Slides,)
4. Stellar structure
• Lecture 07: Basic concepts of stellar structure
5. Hydrogen Burning
• Lecture 08: Hydrogen Burning: pp chains (Slides, Notes)
• Lecture 09: Hydrogen Burning: CNO Cycles (Slides, Notes)
6. The Sun
• Lecture 10: The Sun (Slides, Notes). The material of this lecture is based on this review
• Further reading: How the Sun shines: A general public article about how starts obtain their energy. Solving the Mystery of the Missing Neutrinos: A general public article about how the problem of the Sun missing neutrinos problem was solved.
7. Advanced Burning
• Lecture 11: Hellium burning, Intermediate mass stars (Slides, Notes)
• Lecture 12: Evolution massive stars (Slides)
8. Supernova
• Lecture 13: Nucleosynthesis in core-collapse supernovae (Slides)
• Lecture 14: Explosion mechanism(s) of core-collapse supernova (Slides)
9. Neutron stars
• Lecture 15: Neutron stars and the high-density equation of state (Slides)
10. Nucleosynthesis of Heavy Elements
• Lecture 16: The r process (Slides )
• Further reading: Catching element formation in the act: Article about r-process in neutron star mergers.

Bibliography

• Thomas Rauscher: Essentials for Nucleosynthesis and Theoretical Nuclear Astrophysics, Institute of Physics Publishing, 2020 (Accesible online from the TU Darmstadt network)
• Christian Iliadis: Nuclear Physics of Stars, Wiley-VCH Verlag, Weinheim, 2007
• Bradley W. Carroll and Dale A. Ostlie: An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, Pearson/Addison-Wesley, San Francisco, 2nd ed. 2007
• Claus E. Rolfs and William S. Rodney: Cauldrons in the Cosmos: Nuclear Astrophysics, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, reprint 2005
• Bernard E. J. Pagel: Nucleosynthesis and Chemical Evolution of Galaxies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, reprint 2009
• Donald D. Clayton: Principles of Stellar Evolution and Nucleosynthesis, Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, reprint 1983
• Rudolf Kippenhahn, Alfred Weigert, Achim Weiss: Stellar Structure and Evolution, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012 (Accesible online from the TU Darmstadt network)
• André Maeder: Physics, Formation and Evolution of Rotating Stars, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2009 (Accesible online from the TU Darmstadt network)
• Giora Shaviv: The Synthesis of the Elements: The Astrophysical Quest for Nucleosynthesis and What It Can Tell Us About the Universe, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg, 2012 (Accesible online from the TU Darmstadt network)
• Edward Kolb and Michael Turner, The Early Universe, Westview Press, 1994
• Steven Weinberg, Cosmology, Oxford University Press, 2008

An online introduction to basic astronomical concepts can be found at Astronomy Notes

We recomend to look regularly at the Astronomy Picture of the Day