Particle and Nuclear Astrophysics

The particle and nuclear astrophysics program supports university research in many areas of particle astrophysics and nuclear astrophysics, including the study of ultra high energy particles reaching Earth from beyond our atmosphere and experiments or research and design projects for underground facilities.Currently supported activities are: ultra high energy cosmic-ray, gamma-ray and neutrino studies, the study of gamma-ray bursts, solar, underground and reactor neutrino physics, searches for the direct detection of Dark Matter and searches for neutrino-less double beta decay.Funding is also provided for accelerator-based nuclear astrophysics studies of stellar processes, nucleosynthesis, and processes related to cosmology and the early universe.In past years, the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL) program has funded Research and Development studies for experiments that need to be located in an underground laboratory to reduce backgrounds. At this time, it is not known if there will be similar funding opportunities in FY2010. If there are, an announcement will be made at that time. It should be noted that proposals that are submitted to the PNA program and are requesting in excess of $1,000,000/year may, at the discretion of the Program Officer, be subjected to an additional level of scrutiny in the form of a cost review that would take place before the annual PNA panel that meets to discuss all of the submitted proposals.