Reactions on the surface and inside of neutron stars

Abstract

Measurements from orbiting X-ray satellites during the last decades have provided us with a wealth of information about nuclear reactions thought to occur in the extreme, highdensity environment of neutron stars. With radioactive ion beams from first-generation facilities we have begun to study some of these processes in the laboratory. In this contribution I report on experiments performed with radioactive beams from the ATLAS accelerator at Argonne. I will discuss the nuclear physics of X-ray bursts and super-bursts, the production of in-flight radioactive beams, as well as novel detectors which are used in these experiments.