Trojan Horse particle invariance in fusion reactions

¹ INFN-LNS, Catania, Italy
² Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universitá di Catania, Italy,
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Commerce, USA
⁴ Cyclotron Institute, Texas A&M University, College Station, USA
⁵ Institute of Nuclear Physics, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
⁶ Università degli Studi di Enna “Kore”, Enna, Italy

^a e-mail: rgpizzone@lns.infn.it

Published online: 29 January 2015

Abstract

Trojan Horse method plays an important part for the measurement of several charged particle induced reactions cross sections of astrophysical interest. In order to better understand its cornerstones and the related applications to different astrophysical scenarios several tests were performed to verify all its properties and the possible future perspectives. The Trojan Horse nucleus invariance for the binary reactions d(d,p)t, ^6,7Li(p,α)^3,4He was therefore tested using the appropriate quasi free break- ups, respectively. In the first cases results from ⁶Li and ³He break up were used, while for the lithium fusion reactions break-ups of ²H and ³He were compared. The astrophysical S(E)-factors for the different processes were then extracted in the framework of the PlaneWave Approximation applied to the different break-up schemes. The obtained results are compared with direct data as well as with previous indirect investigations. The very good agreement between data coming from different break-up schemes confirms the applicability of the plane wave approximation and suggests the independence of binary indirect cross section on the chosen Trojan Horse nucleus also for the present cases. Moreover the astrophysical implications of the results will also be discussed in details.