Speaker
Description
One of the most important nuclear reactions in astrophysics is the 15O(α,γ)19Ne(p,γ)20Na reaction, which provides a possible breakout pathway from the hot CNO cycle in stars. Studying this reaction directly in the laboratory is challenging, instead, an indirect study using β-decay proton and α decays of 20Mg was performed at TRIUMF. The experiment used the Gamma-Ray Infrastructure for Fundamental Investigations of Nuclei (GRIFFIN) to detect gamma rays and, for the first time, the Regina Cube for Multiple Particles (RCMP), a newly developed silicon detector array designed to detect low-energy protons and alpha particles. This setup enables the most sensitive search to date for rare decay branches and gamma-ray transitions from astrophysically important states. This talk will describe the analysis of 20Mg decay and what it can tell us about the resonances that play a key role in stellar nucleosynthesis.