Nuclear astrophysics at the beginning of the twenty first century. Chapter 22

The coverage of traditional nuclear astrophysics involves first defining the basic features of nuclear physics and astrophysics that are relevant. Some of the topics discussed involve paradigms that are still in development, so their detailed discussion imposes a risk of producing a document with a short shelf half life. However, this route was chosen over avoiding these new ideas altogether or giving them a minimal discussion; they may turn out to be correct. In any event, a good paradigm is extremely useful to science, even if it is not quite correct. Some new ideas in nuclear astrophysics are also discussed in the context of the new facilities that have either brought them to the fore, or made their study possible. This includes developments in astronomy such as the Compton Gamma Ray observatory, which has elevated gamma-ray astronomy to a new plane. It also includes the radioactive nuclear beam facilities that have been developed for nuclear physics in the past decade, which have made it possible to study the properties of nuclei that could only be treated in the past by theoretical extrapolation