Studying stars by going underground: the LUNA experiment at Gran Sasso Laboratory

Abstract

Cross sections of astrophysically relevant reactions are essential ingredients for element nucleosynthesis, energy generation and neutrino fluxes in stellar environments. The low value of such cross sections in the stellar energy range prevents their measurement in a laboratory at the Earth’s surface where the signal to background ratio would be too small. The LUNA collaboration has exploited the unique features of background reduction offered by the rock overburden above the LNGS underground laboratory in order to study very important Hydrogen-burning reactions. Future perspectives include the installation of a MV machine underground to be able to study also Helium burning reactions.