Chemical Elements as Tracers of the Evolution of the Cosmos - Infrastructures for Nuclear Astrophysics

Project Information

ChETEC-INFRA

Grant agreement ID: 101008324

DOI

10.3030/101008324

Project closed

EC signature date 16 March 2021

Start date 1 May 2021

End date 31 October 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Research Infrastructures

Total cost

€ 4 999 605,35

EU contribution

€ 4 999 605,35

Coordinated by

HELMHOLTZ-ZENTRUM DRESDEN-ROSSENDORF EV
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ChETEC-INFRA (Chemical Elements as Tracers of the Evolution of the Cosmos - Infrastructures for Nuclear Astrophysics)

Reporting period: 2024-05-01 to 2025-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

ChETEC-INFRA is a Starting Community of 14 Research Infrastructures for Nuclear Astrophysics. It lies at the interface between computational astrophysics (infrastructure: supercomputers), astronomy (infrastructure: optical telescopes), and nuclear physics (infrastructure: small ion accelerators). Nuclear astrophysics strives to understand the origin of the *Ch*emical *E*lements as *T*racers of the *E*volution of the *C*osmos (ChETEC-INFRA). The project has networked 14 infrastructures: one supercomputer, four optical telescopes, and nine small ion accelerators. Several were opened for the first time to researchers from outside the country where the infrastructure resides. The overall amount of access distributed well exceeded the projections at the project outset. In particular, ChETEC-INFRA showed that there was great demand for small ion accelerators, including underground accelerators and accelerator mass spectrometry systems but also small accelerators in general. The Bellotti underground accelerator was added as a 14th infrastructure in the final reporting period of the project, and immediately fully subscribed. Further, ChETEC-INFRA showed that medium size optical telescopes play an important role in understanding stellar nucleosynthesis and evolution, complementary to space missions and large surveys. A large number of young researchers was promoted in their careers.

The ChETEC-INFRA project also showed that to further accelerate progress, it is necessary to further extend its interdisciplinary approach. The outreach to meteoritic and planetary science should be strengthened and extended to astrochemistry and astrobiology. There are many isotopic signatures of nuclear astrophysics origin in these disciplines. Further, it was found that the relation to larger infrastructures, on ESFRI scale, must be strengthened. The already impressive by ChETEC-INFRA would have even greater impact if also linked to large scale astronomic surveys, ground-based large and satellite-based telescopes, and large accelerator laboratories.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The diverse set of infrastructures from three disciplines has been successfully unified in a unique access provision system, with altogether 14 calls for proposals published and reviewed by the ChETEC-INFRA independent user selection panel. The coherence of the consortium was ensured by biweekly, inclusive video conferences. This was complemented by annual in-person General Assemblies (2022 Padova, Italy - 2023 Debrecen, Hungary - 2024 Strasbourg, France - 2025 Dresden, Germany), as well as many topical interactions and meetings. The project has provided 7875 hours of accelerator usage, 160 nights of telescope time, and 408,000 cpu hours of supercomputer time in its first two reporting periods. After the very successful SNAQs online scientific school series during the Covid-19 pandemic (1293 participants, 34% female, in 13 editions), ChETEC-INFRA went back to supporting in-person schools: It has provided support to 21 in-person scientific schools with over 1150 participants (35% female). The project instigated several new scientific schools for PhD students: the Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics school (2022 in Geneva, 2024 in Dresden, Germany - 2026 will be in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, but without ChETEC-INFRA support due to the end of the project), the ChETEC-INFRA Observational school (2023 and 2025 in Ondrejov, Czech Republic), the Nuclei in the Cosmos School (2023 in Daejon/Korea and 2025 in Girona/Spain), the i-process Nucleosynthesis school (2023 in Limassol, Cyprus), and the n_TOF Nuclear Physics Winter School (2024 in Saint-Gervais-les-Bains, France). Two new full-day outreach events for high school students, called Nuclear Astrophysics Masterclasses, have been developed, translated into eleven languages, and performed 34 times, reaching 700 students (20-50% female depending on the group) so far. A high number of scientific resources has been created and is now available and linked on the project web page www.chetec-infra.eu. These include six reports useful for practical aspects covering beams, targets, simulations, and industry contacts. Nine different databases have been created and are available via the web page, from nuclear reaction rates, stellar trajectories and solar models, to abundance corrections, and isotopic analysis results databases. The accessibility is guaranteed by online courses and tutorials, and there are several online tools on the web page helping guide experiments and interpret their results. Finally, 300 peer-reviewed papers with explicit ChETEC-INFRA acknowledgment have been published, and made available in green or gold open access.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

ChETEC-INFRA has been a driver of progress in nuclear astrophysics. In addition to the interdisciplinary transnational access with 14 well-subscribed calls published every three months and a high number of publications with explicit project acknowledgment, there are also a number of structural improvements reached by ChETEC-INFRA.

For the first time, infrastructures from all three domains of nuclear astrophysics (observation, experiment, computation) were made accessible in a unified way. Reports and tools to aid users which are not familiar with these infrastructures have been developed and are made available via the project web page. The central hub for all information in ChETEC-INFRA, the project web site, is being maintained well beyond the end of the project and links to many online courses, data resources, a dedicated Youtube channel, and to project publications - all of these developed in the framework of the project. Several new nuclear reaction targets have been developed for the nuclear labs, analysis pipelines for supercomputers, and dedicated abundance corrections and a radial velocity database for the telescopes.

The scientific schools and the other ChETEC-INFRA activities have built a strong link between the small labs networked by ChETEC-INFRA and the big labs, as evidenced by the strong mention of CHETEC-INFRA in the NuPECC Long Range Plan for Nuclear Physics in Europe 2024. Joint experiments have been performed and are being proposed for the future.

The direct scientific impact of ChETEC-INFRA is measured, amongst other ways, by the strong return of the field after the Covid-19 restrictions, as evidenced by the highly oversubscribed series of Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics conferences (2022 Geneva, 2024 Dresden) and scientific schools. There have been a high number of very diverse publications supported by ChETEC-INFRA, showing the interdisciplinary character of the field.

In an era of demographic and cultural challenges, the ChETEC-INFRA outreach activities, including nuclear astrophysics masterclasses and other events, fostered a understanding and appreciation of science in society at large and among young people in particular, and boost the interest in scientific careers.

ChETEC-INFRA has made a lasting footprint both outside and inside Europe. Outside Europe, the CeNAM network (Center for Nuclear Astrophysics Across Messengers) has been approved for funding by the US Department of Energy in 2025 in a highly encouraging development. ChETEC-INFRA is partnering with CeNAM, for example by providing the 2026 chair of the CeNAM online seminar series. Inside Europe, examples for excellence fostered by the CHETEC-INFRA expertise and network are the interdisciplinary ERC Synergy Grant LUNANOVA and several other recent ERC grants.

Logo of ChETEC-INFRA