The influence of nuclear structure and reactions in astrophysics

Nuclear structure and nuclear dynamics play an important role in astrophysics. The occurrence (or non-occurrence) of a certain state at a given excitation energy can change the reaction rate, and thus the abundance of the elements, by many orders of magnitude. An example is the existence of an excited 0+ state in 12C at 7.654 MeV, right in the middle of the Gamow window. This is a crucial step for the formation of 12C via the triple-α reaction. Similarly the lack of a state with natural parity in 20Ne at Ex ∼ 5 MeV prevents the conversion of chemically active 16O into chemically inert 20Ne. In this contribution some recent accomplishments relevant to studies of nuclear structure and dynamics in astrophysics will be discussed.