Laboratory for underground nuclear astrophysics(LUNA)

A compact high-current 50 kV ion accelerator facility including a windowless gas target system, a beam calorimeter, and detector telescopes in close geometry has been built and tested. The data acquisition and analysis involved a multiparameter system and a Monte Carlo program. The LUNA facility, presently installed at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory, is a pilot project focused initially on cross section measurements of the ^3He(^3He, 2p)^4He reaction within the thermal energy region of the sun. To achieve this goal, the experimental sensitivity has been improved by more than four orders of magnitude over that of previous work.