Roland Diehl
Max-Planck-Inst. Extraterrestrische Physik (MPE) (Garching, Allemagne)
occurrence of nuclear reactions in cosmic sites, next to neutrinos. Characteristic lines from radioactive decays have been measured with space-borne telescopes, most-recently with ESA’s INTEGRAL mission, for the isotopes 56Ni, 57Ni, 44Ti, 26Al, and 60Fe. These span a half-life range from a few days to millions of years. We have learned about supernova explosion physics (from the shorter-lived species), and about ejecta transport (from the long-lived ones). Positron annihilation gamma rays have contributed more and independent information on the latter. Other nuclear lines would be expected,
e.g. from cosmic-ray interactions, but still are lower in intensity than instrumental sensitivities. In this talk we will present the methods of gamma-ray line spectroscopy, then discuss the lessons and challenges in context of nucleosynthesis sources and of properties of our Galaxy.
Amphithéâtre Henri Mineur, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris