Bharat Mishra: Laboratory Astrophysics in the PANDORA Facility

Thursday 11 Jun 2026, 13:15 → 14:00 Europe/Stockholm

A5:1003 (AlbaNova Main Building)

Nuclear astrophysics is a fascinating discipline which aims to explain – quantitatively and
qualitatively – the observed abundance of elements in the cosmos. Current nucleosynthesis models
indicate that light elements until the iron peak are produced through progressive stellar burning,
while those beyond are mainly generated by neutron capture processes. The corresponding
network models are sensitive to atomic/nuclear properties of the isotopes and the underlying
astrophysical conditions. Since nucleosynthesis primarily occurs in stars which are high energy
density plasmas, it is necessary to factor in the effect of the plasma on these data for accurate
reconstruction of elemental abundances.
The PANDORA facility, currently under realisation at INFN-LNS, aims to investigate these
properties inside a laboratory magnetoplasma emulating the stellar interior. While the primary
goal of the facility is to measure β-decay rates of isotopes in a hot plasma, the density and
temperature achievable also make it a prospective testbench to measure cross sections of atomic
reactions such as collisional ionisation, excitation and recombination. In this seminar, I will
provide an overview of the physics and technology behind PANDORA. In particular, I will discuss
the properties of the plasma, the interplay between nuclear and atomic data, and the plasma kinetic
simulations we have developed to model observables connected to the variation of decay rates and
atomic reaction cross sections. The experimental data from the facility will serve as useful inputs
in s-process nucleosynthesis models, and for spectral reconstruction of kilonovae in the nebular
phase.