Speaker
Description
Measurements of cross section and their extrapolation to stellar conditions are now routinely performed with accuracy of 5% or better. But the formation of 16O in the fusion of helium with 12C, in the 12C(a,g)16O reaction, is still not known with sufficient accuracy, in spite of the central role that this reaction plays in stellar evolution theory.
We developed [1] a new method to measure this cross section by measuring with (mono-energetic) gamma-beams the inverse process of the photo-dissociation of 16O to 12C and an alpha-particle. The measurements are performed at the HIgS facility using TPC detectors [1] operating with CO2 gas, hence also serving as an active target TPC (AT-TPC).
We will discuss initial measurements with the UConn-TUNL optical readout TPC (O-TPC) [2] that demonstrated the viability of our method [3] and recent results obtained in 2022 [4], with the Warsaw electronic readout TPC detector (eTPC).
*Supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy grant no. DE-FG02-94ER40870 and National Science Centre, Poland, contract no. 2019/33/B/ST2/02176.
[1] M. Gai et al., Nucl. Instr. Meth. A954, 161770 (2020).
[2] M. Gai et al., JINST 5, 12004 (2010).
[3] R. Smith, M. Gai, S. R. Stern, D. K. Schweitzer, M. W. Ahmed,
Nature Communications 12, 5920 (2021).
[4] M. Ćwiok, W. Dominik, A. Fijałkowska, M. Fila, Z. Janas, A. Kalinowski, K. Kierzkowski, M. Kuich, Ch. Mazzocchi, W. Okliński, M. Zaremba, M. Gai, D.K. Schweitzer, S.R. Stern, S. Finch, U. Friman-Gayer, S.R. Johnson, T. Kowalewski, D.L. Balabanski, C. Matei, A. Rotaru, K.C.Z. Haverson, R. Smith, R.A.M. Allen, M.R. Griffiths, S. Pirrie, and P.S.R Alcibia, EPJ Web Conf. 279, 04002 (2023),
| Funding Agency | U.S. Department of Energy grant no. DE-FG02-94ER40 |
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| Email Address | moshe.gai@uconn.edu |
