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Physics Department Colloquium
Lab Astro and the Origins of the Chemical Elements
Date: Friday, February 3rd
Time: 3:30 pm
Place: 2241 Chamberlin Hall
Speaker: James E. Lawler, introduced by UW Emeritus Prof. Wilmer Anderson, UW-Madison
Abstract: James E. Lawler, UW-Physics, 2017 Winner of the American Astronomical Society Laboratory Astrophysics Prize
Only a few of the lightest or primordial nuclei were made just after the Big Bang. Other light nuclei up to the Fe-group are made by fusion in stars. Heavier nuclei are made primarily via r(apid)-process and s(low)-process n(eutron)-capture events. Although the s-process n-capture is fairly well understood, the r-process n-capture events remain poorly understood. The relative role of Core Collapse SNe and n-star mergers will likely be understood in the next few decades. I will discuss recent studies of old Metal-Poor stars that are revealing some new details of nucleosynthesis. This progress is due to the availability of high resolution spectra from large ground based telescopes, access to the UV via HST, and better laboratory data
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