Decay spectroscopy for nuclear astrophysics: β- and β-delayed proton decay

L. Trache*, A. Banu, J. C. Hardy, V. E. Iacob, M. McCleskey, B. T. Roeder, E. Simmons, A. Spiridon, R. E. Tribble, A. Saastamoinen, A. Jokinen, J. Aysto, T. Davinson, G. Lotay, P. J. Woods, E. Pollacco

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract / Description of output

In several radiative proton capture reactions important in novae and XRBs, the resonant parts play the capital role. We use decay spectroscopy techniques to find these resonances and study their properties. We have developed techniques to measure beta- and beta-delayed proton decay of sd-shell, proton-rich nuclei produced and separated with the MARS recoil spectrometer of Texas A&M University. The short-lived radioactive species are produced in-flight, separated, then slowed down (from about 40 MeV/u) and implanted in the middle of very thin Si detectors. This allows us to measure protons with energies as low as 200 keV from nuclei with lifetimes of 100 ms or less. At the same time we measure gamma-rays up to 8 MeV with high resolution HPGe detectors. We have studied the decay of Al, P, Cl, all important for understanding explosive H-burning in novae. The technique has shown a remarkable selectivity to beta-delayed charged-particle emission and works even at radioactive beam rates of a few pps. The states populated are resonances for the radiative proton capture reactions Na(p,γ) Mg (crucial for the depletion of Na in novae), Al(p,γ) Si and P(p,γ) S (bottleneck in novae and XRB burning), respectively. Lastly, results with a new detector that allowed us to measure down to about 80 keV proton energy are announced.
Original languageEnglish
Article number012058
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Physics: Conference Series
Volume337
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2012
Event5th Biannual Conference on Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics (NPA)/24th Nuclear Physics Divisional Conference of the European-Physical-Society (EPS) - Eilat, Israel
Duration: 3 Apr 20118 Apr 2011

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