Nuclear Astrophysics focuses on questions at the interface between nuclear physics and astrophysics. It addresses the role of nuclear reaction processes as engine of stellar evolution and stellar explosions and attempts to find answers to the fundamental questions of the origin of the elements found today throughout the universe as well as on earth.

The signatures of nuclear processes can be directly observed in many cosmic phenomena. The light curves of supernova and X-ray burst explosions reflect the energy release from nuclear reactions. Freshly synthesized elements can be detected in stars and the interstellar gas via atomic absorption and emission lines, or, in the case of a few radioactive species, through characteristic gamma radiation. Meteors contain inclusions, which are direct condensates of matter ejected in stellar explosions or winds that can be analyzed in the laboratory.

This ever increasing flow of observational data from advanced ground and space based telescopes offers an incredible wealth of information which need to be interpreted by detailed theoretical modeling of the underlying complex hydrodynamic and nuclear processes. In the past these theoretical studies were in most cases limited to one dimensional models. Increasing computational power and novel numerical techniques now allow a more realistic two or three-dimensional treatment of slow and rapid evolutionary processes. At the same time, advances

in nuclear physics brought us to a threshold of a new understanding of the nuclear processes underlying cosmic phenomena. These nuclear processes span a wide range, including neutrino-nucleus interactions in the early supernova shock, low energy charged particle reactions in stars, thermo-nuclear reactions of extremely short-lived nuclei in stellar explosions, and pycno-nuclear fusion processes induced by the extreme densities encountered in the interior of neutron stars.

Because of the extreme nature of the stellar conditions, an understanding of these nuclear processes poses an enormous challenge to both, nuclear theorists, and experimentalists. Advances in experimental nuclear astrophysics allow now physicists to investigate many stellar processes in the laboratory. These advances span a wide range of techniques and facilities. They include innovative methods to measure the extremely slow reactions in the interiors of stars, as well as new facilities to produce the very same exotic, short-lived nuclei that come to existence in the extreme environments of stellar explosions.

JINA will foster an interdisciplinary approach to the open questions in nuclear astrophysics. It will drive further advances in nuclear physics and astrophysics that are specifically needed to answer open questions in nuclear astrophysics, and it will ensure that advances in individual fields will ultimately lead to progress in our understanding of nuclear astrophysics.