University of Texas | McDonald Observatory | 2018 Apr 19
Astrophysicists will conduct experiments designed to re-create the physical environment inside stars, with a new $7 million grant that the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE/NNSA) has awarded to The University of Texas at Austin. This work could help astronomers reduce uncertainties about the sizes and ages of super-dense objects known as white dwarf stars.
The DOE/NNSA grant, distributed over a five-year period, will allow the university to establish a new Center for Astrophysical Plasma Properties (CAPP), which aims to advance astronomy through experimental science. Researchers from the center will conduct “at-parameter” experiments, meaning experiments conducted under the same extreme temperatures and densities found inside stars. Using the Z-machine, the world’s most powerful X-ray source, based at Sandia National Laboratories, the team will replicate the extreme temperatures and densities of plasma, the stuff inside stars. ...
