Colloquium – Kelly Chipps

Kelly Chipps, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Nuclear Astrophysics in the Next Decade: Understanding the R Process

We are now in the era of multimessenger astronomy: a coherent combination of myriad observations, ranging from isotopic analysis of stardust, to visible, infrared, and x-ray all-sky surveys, to gravitational wave signatures. Combined with this wealth of observational data, new and upgraded facilities to produce beams of the radioactive nuclei that play a role in these extreme astrophysical environments are coming online. Together with new computational tools, we are gaining considerable new insight into the stellar processes that create the elements. As an example, this talk will focus on the rapid neutron capture process (r process), which we now know takes place in extreme astrophysical environments such as neutron star mergers. A selection of the techniques being developed and employed to constrain the nuclear physics parameters which contribute to improved predictions of r-process abundances will be presented.

Jan 11, 2024 @ 4:00pm Central in Stevenson 4327; reception beforehand at 3:30pm in Stevenson 6333

Host: J Velkovska

Kelly Chipps is a staff member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory studying the nuclear reactions that power stellar explosions and create the elements. She received her PhD from the Colorado School of Mines. She is currently a member of the Nuclear Science Advisory Committee (NSAC), and has acted as the Chair of both the Argonne ATLAS users organization and the FRIB users organization.