Origin of the Elements and Nuclear History of the Universe (EuroGENESIS)

EuroGENESIS is a collaborative research programme running from 2010 till 2013. It addresses the need for a comprehensive approach to understand how matter became complex in the history of the Universe. It is a coordinated and multidisciplinary research effort covering the concepts like Big Bang nucleosynthesis, element genesis in stars and by cosmic rays, their dispersion and ingestion into new stars and planets, the chemistry of the interstellar medium, the melting and differentiation of planetary materials. Many, often sparse, scattered, and even incomplete pieces of knowledge on the origin of elements must be integrated, interpolated and often translated from the technical jargon of one or another specific research branch to be comprehensible to a much wider community. Even more importantly, many, often disconnected, research efforts should be complemented and made more accurate in a coordinated way. EuroGENESIS addresses those issues and targets a number of themes relevant to the understanding of the origin of the elements and the nuclear history of the Universe:

• nucleosynthesis models;

• modelling for interpretation of observations;

• input physics;

• observational and laboratory constraints;

• galactic chemical evolution and cosmochronology.