Towards ab-initio calculations of astrophysical reactions
Hans Feldmeier (GSI)

The microscopic treatment of nuclear reactions is a long standing problem in nuclear physics.
The description of scattering or fusion of two nuclei in an ab-initio sense, where one treats the nucleons as the elementary degrees of freedom and uses realistic interactions among them to calculate the dynamics, is only now coming in sight. Combining all modern developments in the field of nuclear structure we where able to understand the fusion of 3He and 4He to 7Be at the very low energies present in the sun. This also touches upon the question of general interest how composite quantum objects tunnel through the Coulomb barrier. Recent developments in nuclear many-body physics are explained and discussed.