Roland Diehl (Max Planck Institut für extraterrestrische Physik and Technische Universität München, Garching, Germany)

Cosmic nucleosynthesis is encoded in the variety of isotopes which we observe in today’s universe. Deciphering how this result has been built up however remains a challenge, as it has been accumulated from the characteristics of nuclear fusion rates in sites of nucleosynthesis such as stars and stellar explosions. These extreme environments imply occultation for direct measurements and are rare observational opportunities due to rapid dynamics. New astronomies have been found to complement abundance data from our solar system and the mixture of stars, and these can address specific aspects of the cosmic cycle of matter. Space-based gamma-ray telescopes have observed nuclear emission from freshly-produced and unstable isotopes as they decay in interstellar space. In this talk we will discuss what has been learned from more than two decades of nuclear gamma ray spectroscopy on the interiors of stars and supernova explosions, and on how ejecta are spread throughout the interstellar medium.

Presentation (pdf)