Measurement of collective excitation in nuclei and importance of transfer reactions in nuclear astrophysics

Giant resonances are the high-frequency collective vibrational modes in nuclei. Among different modes of giant resonances, Isoscalar Giant Monopole Resonance (ISGMR) is of particular importance due to its dependence on nuclear incompressibility in finite nuclei. Nuclear incompressibility is a key input to the Equation-of-State (EoS) of nuclear matter which is in turn useful in understanding some astrophysical phenomena such as masses of neutron stars and explosions of supernovae. In this presentation, I will discuss giant resonance measurements in Nd isotopes and in ¹⁷²Yb which are highly deformed nuclei. Furthermore, I will focus on transfer reactions having importance in nuclear astrophysics which can be studied using the VECC facility