Professor Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS HonFREng HonFInstP HonFIET

Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Physics
As emeritus professor I am only in my office at Surrey once a fortnight

Academic and research departments

School of Mathematics and Physics.

About

Biography

Jim Al-Khalili CBE FRS is a theoretical physicist who is currently Distinguished Professor Emeritus.

He received his PhD in theoretical nuclear physics from Surrey in 1989 and then spent two years as an SERC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at University College London before returning to Surrey in 1991. He was appointed lecturer in 1992 and, in 1994, was awarded an EPSRC Advanced Research Fellowship for five years during which time he established himself as a world leading authority on nuclear reaction theory of light exotic nuclei, publishing widely. Following this he reverted to a full-time lectureship in the Department at Surrey. He was elected Fellow of the Institute of Physics in 2000 and promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2001. He was promoted to professor of physics in 2005. He has published over a hundred papers in nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and quantum biology and has supervised 22 PhD students.

Jim is also a prominent author and broadcaster. He has written 14 books on popular science and the history of science, between them translated into twenty-six languages. His book,The World According to Physics,was shortlisted for the Royal Society Book Prize. His latest, published in 2022 isThe Joy of Science.  He is a regular presenter of TV science documentaries, such as the Bafta nominated Chemistry: a volatile history,and has hosted the long-running weekly BBC Radio 4 programme, The Life Scientific,since 2011. 

Despite his profile as a public scientist, Jim has continued to teach undergraduate physics students in an unbroken run of 32 years since 1992. He is  still very research active, with five current PhD students working on different aspects of quantum mechanics and open quantum systems and is co-director of theLeverhulme Doctoral Training Centre for Quantum Biology and leads theQuantum Foundations and Technologies Research Group in theSchool of Mathematics and Physics. He is also Principle Investigator on a research project on theQuantum Arrow of Time. 

Jim is a past president of the British Science Association and a recipient of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday medal and the Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, the Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication. He received an OBE in 2007 and a CBE in 2022 for ‘services to science’.

Areas of specialism

Theoretical Physics; Public Engagement in Science; Broadcasting

Affiliations and memberships

Honorary Fellow
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Honorary Fellow
British Association for the Advancement of Science
Officer of the Order of the British Empire
(OBE)
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE)

News

In the media

March 2017
Gravity and me: The force that shapes our lives
Television presenter
BBC4
2016
The beginning and end of the Universe
Television presenter
BBC4
August 2015
Britain’s nuclear secrets: Inside Sellafield
Television presenter
BBC4
2014
Hawking’s Universe - Five-part TV series
Television presenter
National Geographic/Discovery
2013
Light and dark - Two-part series
Television presenter
BBC4
2012
Order and disorder - Two-part series
Television presenter
BBC4
2012
Horizon: The search for the Higgs
Television presenter
BBC2
2011
Brave new world - Five-part TV series
Television presenter
Channel 4
2011
Shock and awe: The story of electricity - Three-part series
Television presenter
BBC4
2011
Horizon: Fukushima: Can we trust nuclear power?
Television presenter
BBC2
2011
Everything and nothing - Two-part series
Television presenter
BBC4
2010
Genius of Britain - Five-part TV series
Television presenter
Channel 4
2010
Chemistry: A volatile history - Three-part TV series
Television presenter
BBC4
2010
The secret life of chaos - One hour TV documentary
Television presenter
BBC4
2009
Science and Islam - Three-part TV series
Television presenter
BBC
2008
Lost horizons: The big bang
Television presenter
BBC4
2007
Atom - Three-part TV series
Television presenter
BBC
2004
The riddle of Einstein’s brain
Television presenter
Channel 4
2015
Too old to be a genius
Radio presenter
BBC Radio 4
2015
The beauty of equations
Radio presenter
BBC Radio 4
2011
Archive on four: Julian Huxley
Radio presenter
BBC Radio 4
Secret scientists - Three-part radio series
Radio presenter
BBC World Service on Islamic science

External Communications and PR team

Phone: +44 (0)1483 684380 / 688914 / 684378

Email:mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk

Out-of-hours: +44 (0)7773 479911

Research

Research interests

Al-Khalili leads the Quantum Foundations and Technologies Group in the School of Mathematics and Physics at Surrey and lead investigator on the project, TheQuantum Arrow of Time, a multidisciplinary project involving theoretical physicists, computational chemists, mathematicians, molecular biologists and philosophers of physics and involving a collaboration between six universities.

His research background is in the field of theoretical nuclear physics. This has mostly been in the development of few-body quantum scattering methods to study nuclear reaction mechanisms and nuclear structure, particularly as applied to the study of exotic nuclei produced by radioactive beam facilities around the world. He has pioneered the application of few-body Glauber methods in nuclear scattering and reactions at intermediate and high energies. His interests have spanned a wide range of reaction energies from the study of the light nuclei using electromagnetic probes such as electron scattering and photo-induced pion production reactions, to reactions of astrophysical interest. Over the past few years, he has become interested studying quantum mechanisms in biology and has published several papers on quantum tunneling in DNA. His current interests are in the foundations of quantum mechanics and, in particular, the origin of the arrow of time in quantum entanglement.

Research projects

Al-Khalili is the lead investigator on the project, TheQuantum Arrow of Time, a multidisciplinary project involving theoretical physicists, computational chemists, mathematicians, molecular biologists and philosophers of physics and involving a collaboration between Surrey and the Universities of Oxford and Bristol in the UK and UCLA, UC San Diego and Arizona State University in the US.

Research collaborations

Al-Khalili collaborates with colleagues, and jointly supervises postdocs and research students in his role theQuantum Foundations and Technologies Research Group leader and as co-director of theLeverhulme Doctoral Training Centre in Quantum Biology. He is also Principal Investigator on the project, TheQuantum Arrow of Time, a multidisciplinary project involving theoretical physicists, computational chemists, mathematicians, molecular biologists and philosophers of physics and involving a collaboration between Surrey and the Universities of Oxford and Bristol in the UK and UCLA, UC San Diego and Arizona State University in the US.

 

Over his career he has had strong collaborative links on a range of topics in nuclear physics with theorists and experimentalists in Europe, the US and Canada, in particular where relating to research on exotic nuclear beams at the major labs. He is the theory coordinator for the R3B collaboration at GSI. Collaborates with PDRA DR Qiang Zhao at Surrey and Professor Frank Close (Oxford) on problems in hadron physics. Collaborates with both theorists and experimentalists at TRIUMF Lab, Vancouver, and Jyvaskyla Lab in Finland on decay studies of exotic nuclei, particularly relating to nuclear astrophysics Collaborates with both physicists and Microbiologists on topics relating to quantum effects in biological systems.

Indicators of esteem

  • Honours and Awards

    • 9 Honorary doctorates:Birmingham (2022), Newcastle (2022), St Andrews (2019), Roehampton (2018), York (2017), Portsmouth (2015), Open University (2015), Bradford (2014), Royal Holloway (2013)
    • Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, 2023
    • Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), 2021 
    • Royal Society Wilkins-Bernal-Medawar Medal, 2020
    • Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Physics, 2019
    • Honorary Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2019
    • Asian Award for Outstanding Achievement in Science, 2019
    • Fellow of the Royal Society, 2018
    • Honorary Fellow of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, 2007
    • Stephen Hawking Medal for science communication, 2016
    • EPSRC RISE Award, ‘for inspirational leadership in science and engineering’, 2014
    • Institute of Physics Kelvin Medal and Prize, 2011
    • Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2008 
    • Royal Society Michael Faraday Medal and Prize, 2007 
    • Fellow of The Institute of Physics, 2000.
    • Institute of Physics Award for Public Awareness in Physics, 2000. 

    Professional Offices, Board and Panel Membership (Current)

    • Trustee and Board Member of the 1851 Royal Commission (2022–2032)
    • Member of Judging Panel of Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (2017–2023)
    • Member of Royal Society Public Engagement Committee
    • Member of the Royal Society Medals and Awards Search Panel
    • Member of European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press (2022–)
    • President, Blackham Society, Humanists UK (2016–)
    • Member of advisory panel of FQXi (Foundational Questions Institute) (2022–)
    • Member of advisory board of HAPP (Oxford University Centre for History and Philosophy of Physics) (2021–)
    • Patron, Humanists UK
    • Patron, National Education Museum
    • Patron of UK Metric Association 

    Professional Offices, Board and Panel Membership (Past)

    • Trustee and Member of Council, Institute of Physics (2016–2020)
    • Trustee and Member of Board of Directors of CaSE (The Campaign for Science and Engineering) (2014–2020)
    • Trustee and Member of Council of British Science Association (2006-12)
    • President of the British Science Association, 2018
    • President of the Physics and Astronomy Section of British Science Association (2010/2011)
    • President of the British Humanists Association (2013–2016)
    • Chair of Nuclear and Particle Physics Division of the Institute of Physics (2001 – 2005)
    • Member of the British Council Science and Engineering Advisory Group (2007 – 2011) 
    • Vice President of the British Science Association (2009 – 2012)
    • Member of Royal Society Education Committee (2015–2021)
    • External examiner for Open University Department of Physics and Astronomy (2006 – 2012)
    • Recorder for the Physics and Astronomy Section of the British Science Association (2002 – 2006)
    • Honorary Secretary of the Nuclear Physics Group of the Institute of Physics (1996 – 2001)
    • Member of HEFCE REF sub-panels 8 (Chemistry) and 9 (Physics) assessing Impact (2013-14)
    • Member of Royal Society Vision for Science and Mathematics Education Committee (2011-14) 
    • Judge on Art Fund Prize for Museums and Galleries (2011, 2012)
    • Member of Royal Society Equality and Diversity Panel (2009 – 2012) 
    • Member of EPSRC Societal Issues Panel (2008 – 2011) 
    • Judge of the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction Books (2007)
    •  

    Supervision

    Postgraduate research supervision

    Teaching

    Level: HE4 – The Universe (PHY1037)

    Publications

    Highlights

    Matter radii of light halo nuclei, J.S. Al-Khalili and J.A. Tostevin,Phys. Rev. Lett. 76(1996) 3903-3906. [258 citations]. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.76.3903

    Radii of halo nuclei from cross section measurements, J.S. Al-Khalili, J.A. Tostevin and I.J. Thompson,Phys. Rev. C 54(1996) 1843-1852. [257 citations]. DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.54.1843

    Modelling proton tunnelling in the adenine-thymine base pair, AD. Godbeer, J.S. Al-Khalili and P.D. Stevenson,Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 17(2015) 13034-13044. DOI:10.1039/C5CP00472A

    Advances in Optics in the Medieval Islamic World, J.S. Al-Khalili,Contemporary Physics, 56(2015) 109-122, DOI:10.1080/00107514.2015.1028753.

    Michael Faraday's 'Experimental Researches in Electricity. On the Induction of Electric Currents. On the Evolution of Electricity from Magnetism. On a new Electrical Condition of Matter. On Arago''s Magnetic Phenomena', Philosophical Transactions, 1832, J.S. Al-Khalili,Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 373: 20140208.http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2014.0208.

    Louie Slocombe, Marco Sacchi, Jim Al-Khalili(2022)An open quantum systems approach to proton tunnelling in DNA, In: Communications physics5(1)109 NATURE PORTFOLIO

    One of the most important topics in molecular biology is the genetic stability of DNA. One threat to this stability is proton transfer along the hydrogen bonds of DNA that could lead to tautomerisation, hence creating point mutations. We present a theoretical analysis of the hydrogen bonds between the Guanine-Cytosine (G-C) nucleotide, which includes an accurate model of the structure of the base pairs, the quantum dynamics of the hydrogen bond proton, and the influence of the decoherent and dissipative cellular environment. We determine that the quantum tunnelling contribution to the proton transfer rate is several orders of magnitude larger than the classical over-the-barrier hopping. Due to the significance of the quantum tunnelling even at biological temperatures, we find that the canonical and tautomeric forms of G-C inter-convert over timescales far shorter than biological ones and hence thermal equilibrium is rapidly reached. Furthermore, we find a large tautomeric occupation probability of 1.73 x 10(-4), suggesting that such proton transfer may well play a far more important role in DNA mutation than has hitherto been suggested. Our results could have far-reaching consequences for current models of genetic mutations.The genetic stability of DNA suffers from proton transfer along the hydrogen bonds that can lead to tautomerisation, creating mutations. The authors theoretically examine the tautomerisation of the GuanineCytosine (G-C) nucleotide base-pair using an open quantum systems approach, finding that the contribution of quantum tunnelling to the reaction rate outweighs classical barrier-hopping.

    W. J. Nuttall, D. G. Ireland, J. S. Al-Khalili, W. Gelletly(2005)Potential for British research into the transmutation of radioactive wastes and problematic nuclear materials, In: International journal of critical infrastructures1(4)pp. 380-393 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

    Issues concerning the management of the UK's official radioactive wastes and associated surplus radioactive materials are summarised. The potential for partitioning and transmutation (P& T) of these materials is considered and associated potential developments discussed. The paper recommends international P& T research as part of a move to reduce the volume of nuclear waste. This reduction would be beneficial in addressing security and environmental concerns, as well as improving public acceptance of the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle.

    Lester Buxton, Marc-Thomas Russo, Jim Al-Khalili, Andrea RoccoQuantum Brownian Motion in the Caldeira-Leggett Model with a Damped Environment, In: arXiv (Cornell University)

    We model a quantum system coupled to an environment of damped harmonicoscillators by following the approach of Caldeira-Leggett and adopting theCaldirola-Kanai Lagrangian for the bath oscillators. In deriving the masterequation of the quantum system of interest (a particle in a general potential),we show that the potential is modified non-trivially by a new inverted harmonicoscillator term, induced by the damping of the bath oscillators. We analyzenumerically the case of a particle in a double-well potential, and find thatthis modification changes both the rate of decoherence at short times and thewell-transfer probability at longer times. We also identify a simple rescalingcondition that keeps the potential fixed despite changes in the environmentaldamping. Here, the increase of environmental damping leads to a slowing ofdecoherence.

    Youngchan Kim, Federico Bertagna, Edeline M. D’Souza, Derren J. Heyes, Linus O. Johannissen, Eveliny T. Nery, Antonio Pantelias, Alejandro Sanchez-Pedreño Jimenez, Louie Slocombe, Michael G. Spencer, Jim Al-Khalili, Gregory S. Engel, Sam Hay, Suzanne M. Hingley-Wilson, Kamalan Jeevaratnam, Alex R. Jones, Daniel R. Kattnig, Rebecca Lewis, Marco Sacchi, Nigel S. Scrutton, S. Ravi P. Silva, Johnjoe McFadden(2021)Quantum Biology: An Update and Perspective, In: Quantum Reports3(6)pp. 80-126 MDPI AG

    Understanding the rules of life is one of the most important scientific endeavours and has revolutionised both biology and biotechnology. Remarkable advances in observation techniques allow us to investigate a broad range of complex and dynamic biological processes in which living systems could exploit quantum behaviour to enhance and regulate biological functions. Recent evidence suggests that these non-trivial quantum mechanical effects may play a crucial role in maintaining the non-equilibrium state of biomolecular systems. Quantum biology is the study of such quantum aspects of living systems. In this review, we summarise the latest progress in quantum biology, including the areas of enzyme-catalysed reactions, photosynthesis, spin-dependent reactions, DNA, fluorescent proteins, and ion channels. Many of these results are expected to be fundamental building blocks towards understanding the rules of life.

    F Sarazin, J S Al-Khalili, G C Ball, G Hackman, P M Walker, R A Austin, B Eshpeter, P Finlay, P E Garrett, G F Grinyer, K A Koopmans, W D Kulp, J R Leslie, D Melconian, C J Osborne, M A Schumaker, H C Scraggs, J Schwarzenberg, M B Smith, C E Svensson, J C Waddington, J L Wood(2004)Halo Neutrons and the Beta Decay of Li-11, In: Physical Review C70(3)

    The beta decay of Li-11 has been investigated at TRIUMF-ISAC using a high-efficiency array of Compton suppressed HPGe detectors. From a line-shape analysis of the Doppler-broadened peaks observed in the Be-10 gamma spectrum, both the half-lives of states in Be-10 and the energies of the beta-delayed neutrons feeding those states were obtained. Furthermore, it was possible to determine the excitation energies of the parent states in Be-11 with uncertainties comparable to those obtained from neutron spectroscopy experiments. These data suggest that the beta decay to the 8.81 MeV state in Be-11 occurs in the Li-9 core and that one neutron comprising the halo of Li-11 survives in a halolike configuration after the beta-delayed neutron emission from this level.

    L Bianco, RD Page, IG Darby, DT Joss, J Simpson, JS Al-Khalili, AJ Cannon, B Cederwall, S Eeckhaudt, S Ertürk, B Gall, MBG Hornillos, T Grahn, PT Greenlees, B Hadinia, K Heyde, U Jakobsson, PM Jones, R Julin, S Juutinen, S Ketelhut, M Labiche, M Leino, A-P Leppänen, M Nyman, D O'Donnell, ES Paul, M Petri, P Peura, A Puurunen, P Rahkila, P Ruotsalainen, M Sandzelius, PJ Sapple, J Sarén, C Scholey, NA Smirnova, AN Steer, PD Stevenson, EB Suckling, J Thomson, J Uusitalo, M Venhart(2010)Discovery of 157W and 161Os, In: Physics Letters, Section B: Nuclear, Elementary Particle and High-Energy Physics690(1)pp. 15-18
    Louie Slocombe, Max Winokan, Jim Al-Khalili, Marco Sacchi(2022)Proton transfer during DNA strand separation as a source of mutagenic guanine-cytosine tautomers, In: Communications chemistry5144 NATURE PORTFOLIO

    Proton transfer between DNA bases can lead to mutagenic tautomers, but as their lifetimes are thought to be much shorter than DNA separation times their role during the DNA replication cycle is often overlooked. Here, the authors model the separation of the DNA base pair guanine-cytosine using density functional theory and find increased stability of the tautomer when the DNA strands unzip as they enter a helicase enzyme, effectively trapping the tautomer population.Proton transfer between the DNA bases can lead to mutagenic Guanine-Cytosine tautomers. Over the past several decades, a heated debate has emerged over the biological impact of tautomeric forms. Here, we determine that the energy required for generating tautomers radically changes during the separation of double-stranded DNA. Density Functional Theory calculations indicate that the double proton transfer in Guanine-Cytosine follows a sequential, step-like mechanism where the reaction barrier increases quasi-linearly with strand separation. These results point to increased stability of the tautomer when the DNA strands unzip as they enter the helicase, effectively trapping the tautomer population. In addition, molecular dynamics simulations indicate that the relevant strand separation time is two orders of magnitude quicker than previously thought. Our results demonstrate that the unwinding of DNA by the helicase could simultaneously slow the formation but significantly enhance the stability of tautomeric base pairs and provide a feasible pathway for spontaneous DNA mutations.

    Sapphire Lally, Nicholas Werren, Jim Al-Khalili, Andrea Rocco(2022)Master equation for non-Markovian quantum Brownian motion: The emergence of lateral coherences, In: Physical Review A105(1)012209pp. 012209-1-012209-16 American Physical Society

    Understanding the behaviour of a quantum system coupled to its environment is of fundamental interest in the general field of quantum technologies. It also has important repercussions on foundational problems in physics, such as the process of decoherence and the so-called quantum measurement problem. There have been many approaches to explore Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics within the framework of open quantum systems, but the richness of the ensuing dynamics is still not fully understood. In this paper we develop a non-Markovian extension of the standard Caldeira-Leggett model, based on expanding the dynamics of the reduced system at high temperature in inverse powers of the high-frequency cutoff of the Ohmic spectral density of the environment and derive a non-Markovian master equation for the reduced density matrix for the case of a general potential. We also obtain a fully analytical solution in the free particle case. While the short-time behavior of this solution does not diverge substantially from the Markovian behavior, at intermediate times we find a resurgence of coherence, which we name lateral coherence. We identify this with a corresponding transient negative entropy production rate, which is understood to be characteristic of non-Markovian dynamics. We also analyze the positivity of the reduced density matrix and derive the corresponding Fokker-Planck equation in the classical limit.

    Yang Hong Li, Jim Al-Khalili, Paul Denis StevensonSolving coupled Non-linear Schrödinger Equations via Quantum Imaginary Time Evolution, In: arXiv (Cornell University)

    Coupled non-linear Schrödinger equations are crucial in describing dynamics of many particle systems. We present a quantum imaginary time evolution (ITE) algorithm as a solution to such equations in the case of nuclear Hartree-Fock equations. Under a simplified Skyrme interaction model, we calculate the ground state energy of an oxygen-16 nucleus and demonstrate that the result is in agreement with the classical ITE algorithm.

    Max Winokan, Louie Slocombe, Jim Al-Khalili, Marco Sacchi(2023)Multiscale simulations reveal the role of PcrA helicase in protecting against spontaneous point mutations in DNA, In: Scientific Reports13(1)21749pp. 21749-21749 Nature Research

    Proton transfer across hydrogen bonds in DNA can produce non-canonical nucleobase dimers and is a possible source of single-point mutations when these forms mismatch under replication. Previous computational studies have revealed this process to be energetically feasible for the guanine-cytosine (GC) base pair, but the tautomeric product (G * C *) is short-lived. In this work we reveal, for the first time, the direct effect of the replisome enzymes on proton transfer, rectifying the shortcomings of existing models. Multi-scale quantum mechanical/molecular dynamics (QM/MM) simulations reveal the effect of the bacterial PcrA Helicase on the double proton transfer in the GC base pair. It is shown that the local protein environment drastically increases the activation and reaction energies for the double proton transfer, modifying the tautomeric equilibrium. We propose a regime in which the proton transfer is dominated by tunnelling, taking place instantaneously and without atomic rearrangement of the local environment. In this paradigm, we can reconcile the metastable nature of the tautomer and show that ensemble averaging methods obscure detail in the reaction profile. Our results highlight the importance of explicit environmental models and suggest that asparagine N624 serves a secondary function of reducing spontaneous mutations in PcrA Helicase.

    R Reifarthl, S Altstadt, K Goebell, T Heftrich, M Heil, A Koloczek, C Langer, R Plag, M Pohl, K Sonnabend, M Weigand, T Adachi, F Aksouh, J Al-Khalili, M AlGarawi, S AlGhamdi, G Alkhazov, N Alkhomashi, H Alvarez-Pol, R Alvarez-Rodriguez, V Andreev, B Andrei, L Atar, T Aumann, V Adeichikov, C Bacri, S Bagchi, C Barbieri, S Beceiro, C Beck, C Beinrucker, G Belier, D Bemmerer, M Bendel, J Benlliure, G Benzoni, R Berjillos, D Bertini, C Bertulani, S Bishop, N Blasi, T Bloch, Y Blumenfeld, A Bonaccorso, K Boretzky, A Botvina, A Boudard, P Boutachkov, I Boztosun, A Bracco, S Brambilla, J Briz Monago, M Caamano, C Caesar, F Camera, E Casarejos, W Catford, J Cederkall, B Cederwall, M Chartier, A Chatillon, M Cherciu, L Chulkov, P Coleman-Smith, D Cortina-Gil, F Crespi, R Crespo, J Cresswell, M Csatlos, F Dechery, B Davids, T Davinson, V Derya, P Detistov, P Diaz Fernandez, D DiJuliot, S Dmitry, D Dore, J Duenas, E Dupont, P Egelhof, I Egorova, Z Elekes, J Enders, J Endres, S Ershov, O Ershova, B Fernandez-Dominguez, A Fetisov, E Fiori, A Fomichev, M Fonseca, L Fraile, M Freer, J Friese, MG Borge, D Galaviz Redondo, S Gannon, U Garg, I Gasparic, L Gasques, B Gastineau, H Geissel, R Gernhaeuser, T Ghosh, M Gilbert, J Glorius, P Golubev, A Gorshkov, A Gourishett, L Grigorenko, J Gulyas, M Haiduc, F Hammache, M Harakeh, M Hass, M Heine, A Hennig, A Henriques, R Herzberg, M Holl, A Ignatov, A Ignatyuk, S Ilieva, M Ivanov, N Iwasa, B Jakobsson, H Johansson, B Jonson, P Joshi, A Junghans, B Jurado, G Koerner, N Kalantar, R Kanungo, A Kelic-Heil, K Kezzar, E Khan, A Khanzadeev, O Kiselev, M Kogimtzis, D Koerper, S Kraeckmann, T Kroell, R Kruecken, A Krasznahorkay, J Kratz, D Kresan, T Krings, A Krumbholz, S Krupko, R Kulessa, S Kumar, N Kurz, E Kuzmin, M Labiche, K Langanke, I Lazarus, T Le Bleis, C Lederer, A Lemasson, R Lemmon, V Liberati, Y Litvinov, B Loeher, J Lopez Herraiz, G Muenzenberg, J Machado, E Maev, K Mahata, D Mancusi, J Marganiec, M Martinez Perez, V Marusov, D Mengoni, B Million, V Morcelle, O Moreno, A Movsesyan, E Nacher, M Najafi, T Nakamura, F Naqvi, E Nikolski, T Nilsson, C Nociforo, P Nolan, B Novatsky, G Nyman, A Ornelas, R Palit, S Pandit, V Panin, C Paradela, V Parkar, S Paschalis, P Pawlowski, A Perea, J Pereira, C Petrache, M Petri, S Pickstone, N Pietralla, S Pietri, Y Pivovarov, P Potlog, A Prokofiev, G Rastrepina, T Rauscher, G Ribeiro, M Ricciardi, A Richter, C Rigollet, K Riisager, A Rios, C Ritter, TR Frutos, J Rodriguez Vignote, M Roeder, C Romig, D Rossi, P Roussel-Chomaz, P Rout, S Roy, P Soederstroem, MS Sarkar, S Sakuta, M Salsac, J Sampson, JS del Rio Saez, J Sanchez Rosado, S Sanjari, P Sarriguren, A Sauerwein, D Savran, C Scheidenberger, H Scheit, S Schmidt, C Schmitt, L Schnorrenberger, P Schrock, R Schwengner, D Seddon, B Sherrill, A Shrivastava, S Sidorchuk, J Silva, H Simon, E Simpson, P Singh, D Slobodan, D Sohler, M Spieker, D Stach, E Stan, M Stanoiu, S Stepantsov, P Stevenson, F Strieder, L Stuhl, T Suda, K Suemmerer, B Streicher, J Taieb, M Takechi, I Tanihata, J Taylor, O Tengblad, G Ter-Akopian, S Terashima, P Teubig, R Thies, M Thoennessen, T Thomas, J Thornhill, G Thungstrom, J Timar, Y Togano, U Tomohiro, T Tornyi, J Tostevin, C Townsley, W Trautmann, T Trivedi, S Typel, E Uberseder, J Udias, T Uesaka, L Uvarov, Z Vajta, P Velho, V Vikhrov, M Volknandt, V Volkov, P von Neumann-Cose, M von Schmid, A Wagner, F Wamers, H Weick, D Wells, L Westerberg, O Wieland, M Wiescher, C Wimmer, K Wimmer, JS Winfield, M Winkel, P Woods, R Wyss, D Yakorev, M Yavor, JZ Cardona, I Zartova, T Zerguerras, I Zgura, A Zhdanov, M Zhukov, M Zieblinski, A Zilges, K Zuber(2016)Nuclear astrophysics with radioactive ions at FAIR, In: Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics VI (NPA6). Journal of Physics: Conference Series665(1)
    DOI: 10.1088/1742-6596/665/1/012044

    The nucleosynthesis of elements beyond iron is dominated by neutron captures in the s and r processes. However, 32 stable, proton-rich isotopes cannot be formed during those processes, because they are shielded from the s-process flow and r-process, β-decay chains. These nuclei are attributed to the p and rp process. For all those processes, current research in nuclear astrophysics addresses the need for more precise reaction data involving radioactive isotopes. Depending on the particular reaction, direct or inverse kinematics, forward or time-reversed direction are investigated to determine or at least to constrain the desired reaction cross sections. The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) will offer unique, unprecedented opportunities to investigate many of the important reactions. The high yield of radioactive isotopes, even far away from the valley of stability, allows the investigation of isotopes involved in processes as exotic as the r or rp processes.