Dr Alessandro Compagnucci
PDRA - Experimental Nuclear Astrophysics
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh (UK)
Email: alessandro.compagnucci@ed.ac.uk
PI of NUCLEAR project
Background
Alessandro is a physicist specialising in experimental nuclear astrophysics. He earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Physics from the University of Padua (Università degli Studi di Padova), focusing on the physics of fundamental interactions. For his Master's thesis, he contributed to the LUNA Collaboration, studying the ²⁰Ne(p,γ)²¹Na reaction at astrophysical energies.
He completed his PhD in Astroparticle Physics at the Gran Sasso Science Institute, where he conducted the first scientific measurement at the 3.5 MV accelerator of the Bellotti Ion Beam Facility at the Gran Sasso National Laboratories. His doctoral work focused on a novel underground measurement of the ¹⁴N(p,γ)¹⁵O reaction, the slowest process in the CNO cycle.
Since February 2025, Alessandro has been a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Edinburgh, continuing his work on experimental nuclear astrophysics for the NUCLEAR project while co-leading the development of the LunaDAQ acquisition framework within the LUNA Collaboration. He has also gained international experience as an IReNA Visiting Fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he contributed to neutron-induced reaction studies at the LENZ instrument.
Research Interests
Alessandro's research focuses on the direct measurement of charged-particle induced nuclear reactions that govern stellar energy production, with particular emphasis on the CNO cycle and first-generation stars nucleosynthesis. He is interested in improving the precision of low-energy cross sections relevant to astrophysics, thereby refining models of stellar evolution and elemental abundances.
His work combines underground accelerator-based experiments, detector development, and target characterisation using ion beam analysis. He is also interested in simulation-driven optimisation of experimental setups (e.g. using Geant4) and development of comprehensive data-acquisition software to ensure standardized data formats and workflows within the LUNA collaboration.