Nuclear astrophysics at LUNA: recent results

Abstract

At temperatures typical of astrophysical environments, nuclear cross sections are extremely small and experimental measurements in a laboratory at the Earth's surface are hampered by the cosmic background. The LUNA collaboration has exploited the unique features of background reduction offered by the rock overburden above the LNGS underground laboratory in order to study very important hydrogen-burning reactions at their relevant astrophysical energies. After a general introduction on the LUNA experiment, this paper reports on the most important results obtained so far and their astrophysical consequences. An overview on the future possibilities of this experiment through a consistent upgrade of the available experimental apparatus is also given.