The Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE) is a multi-institutional Physics Frontiers Center funded by the US

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

since 2014. From 2003 to 2014, JINA was a collaboration between

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

, the

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin founded the school in 1842. The main campu ...

, the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, and directed by

Michael Wiescher Michael C. F. Wiescher (born 1949 in Wuppertal) is a German-American experimental nuclear physicist and astrophysicist, known for his laboratory research in nuclear physics connected with various astrophysical phenomena such as stellar evolution and ...

from the University of Notre Dame. Principal investigators were

Hendrik Schatz Hendrik Schatz is a professor of Nuclear Astrophysics at Michigan State University. He earned his Diploma from the University of Karlsruhe in 1993, and his PhD from the University of Heidelberg in 1997 after completing his thesis work at the Uni ...

, Timothy Beers and Jim Truran. JINA-CEE is a collaboration between

, the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

and

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

and a number of associated institutions, centers, and national laboratories in the US and across the world, with the goal to bring together nuclear experimenters, nuclear theorists, astrophysical modelers, astrophysics theorists, and observational astronomers to address the open scientific questions at the intersection of nuclear physics and astrophysics. JINA-CEE serves as an intellectual center and focal point for the field of nuclear astrophysics, and is intended to enable scientific work and exchange of data and information across field boundaries within its collaboration, and for the field as a whole though workshops, schools, and web-based tools and data bases. It is led by director

with Michael Wiescher, Timothy Beers, Sanjay Reddy and Frank Timmes as principal investigators. Most JINA-CEE nuclear physics experiments are carried out at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame, the

National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory The National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL), located on the campus of Michigan State University was a isotope, rare isotope research facility in the United States.Bruns, Adam (January 2009How Are You Helping Companies Grow?''Site Sel ...

at Michigan State University and the ATLAS/CARIBOU facility at

Argonne National Laboratory Argonne National Laboratory is a science and engineering research United States Department of Energy National Labs, national laboratory operated by University of Chicago, UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facil ...

. JINA-CEE is heavily involved in observations with the Apache Point Observatory within the framework of extensions to the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 a ...

LAMOST The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fibre Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST), also known as the Guo Shoujing Telescope (Chinese: 郭守敬望远镜) after the 13th-century Chinese astronomer, is a meridian reflecting Schmidt telescope, located in Xing ...

in China,

SkyMapper SkyMapper is a fully automated 1.35 m (4.4 ft) wide-angle optical telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in northern New South Wales, Australia. It is one of the telescopes of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics of the ...

in Australia, and the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

. Among many other observational data, JINA-CEE also uses heavily X-ray observational data from

BeppoSAX BeppoSAX was an Italian–Dutch satellite for X-ray astronomy which played a crucial role in resolving the origin of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), the most energetic events known in the universe. It was the first X-ray mission capable of simultaneous ...

RXTE The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) was a NASA satellite that observed the time variation of astronomical X-ray sources, named after physicist Bruno Rossi. The RXTE had three instruments — an All Sky Monitor, the High-Energy X-ray Timing ...

Chandra Chandra ( sa, चन्द्र, Candra, shining' or 'moon), also known as Soma ( sa, सोम), is the Hindu god of the Moon, and is associated with the night, plants and vegetation. He is one of the Navagraha (nine planets of Hinduism) and ...

, XMM-Newton, and

INTEGRAL In mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented i ...

. JINA stimulated the development of similar centers in other countries, and collaborates with a number of multi-institutional nuclear astrophysics centers in Germany, including NAVI, EMMI and the Universe Cluster in Munich.

REACLIB Database

One of the many projects of JINA-CEE is the maintenance of an up-to-date

nuclear reaction In nuclear physics and nuclear chemistry, a nuclear reaction is a process in which two atomic nucleus, nuclei, or a nucleus and an external subatomic particle, collide to produce one or more new nuclides. Thus, a nuclear reaction must cause a t ...

rate library called REACLIB. REACLIB contains over 75,000 thermonuclear reaction rates.

Virtual Journal

Nuclear astrophysics is made of many overlapping disciplines, spanning fields in Astronomy, Astrophysics and Nuclear Physics. In order to understand the origin of the elements, or the evolution and deaths of stars in galaxies, quite a broad base of knowledge is required. JINA-CEE created two virtual journals in order to meet the need for coverage of this broad-based information. The JINA Virtual Journal debuted in 2003, and reviews a broad realm of nuclear astrophysics, followed by the SEGUE Virtual Journal in 2006, focusing more on Galactic Chemical and Structural evolution. Each week, the editors search almost 40 refereed journals for newly published articles. Editors review the articles, flagging those that are relevant, and categorize them into their respective subjects (which are searchable by individual users). When the virtual journals are published, an email notification is sent to subscribers informing them of the newly available selections from the Virtual Journals.

Education

Education, outreach, and creating inclusive environments are high priorities for JINA-CEE. JINA-CEE has a multitude of educational and outreach programs aimed at attracting young people to science careers, research training, and disseminating research findings to the public. Educational programs target audiences ranging from K-12 to Graduate Students and Postdocs.

References

External links

Official JINA website

JINA DIANA/SURF Nuclear Astrophysics Group website

JINA FRIB Nuclear Astrophysics Group website

JINA SDSS-II Nuclear Astrophysics Group website

{{authority control Research institutes in the United States Astrophysics institutes