History

CeNAM builds on the legacy of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA). JINA was founded in 1999 between the University of Notre Dame, Michigan State University, and the University of Chicago. From 2002-2022 JINA had been supported as an NSF Physics Frontiers Center, with an extremely successful combination of a broad range of synergistic activities and a cutting-edge interdisciplinary research program. During this time, JINA grew significantly to include in the end 26 institutions in 9 countries, and about 300 scientific participants, including about 240 students and postdocs. In addition, more than 400 scientists participated annually in various JINA activities. JINA had inspired the formation of similar centers and networks across the world, and developed close partnerships that eventually were formalized with additional funding from the NSF AccelNet Program as the International Research Network for Nuclear Astrophysics (IReNA). 

CeNAM builds on the momentum and the large community built by JINA, and expands connections to the new communities that need to connect in the era of multi-messenger and time-domain astronomy and advanced accelerator facilities of various types. CeNAM was founded in 2022 with support from the Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Office of Nuclear Physics, and replaces JINA in the IReNA international framework. It focuses on the new scientific questions emerging at these new frontiers of science and the new opportunities to address some of the long-standing fundamental open questions. CeNAM supports synergistic activities to form a new scientific community and efforts to facilitate the exchange of data across field boundaries.   

Right from its beginnings in the early 20th century, nuclear physics was inextricably connected with astrophysics - from explaining the seemingly infinite energy supply of the sun (1920 by Eddington, 1938/39 von Weizsaecker and Bethe) to the first attempts at a theory of the origin of the elements (1946 by Hoyle, 1957 by Burbidge, Burbidge, Fowler, and Hoyle; 1957 by Cameron), the discovery of the Hoyle state enabling the cosmic synthesis of carbon and oxygen at Caltech's Kellogg Radiation Laboratory (1957 by Fowler and co-workers) and the direct detection of neutrinos as nuclear messengers from the sun (in the 1960s by Davis) and later from supernova 1987A (by the Kamiokande OO, IMB, and Baksan collaborations).