Indirect Study of the ¹⁶O+¹⁶O Fusion Reaction Toward Stellar Energies by the Trojan Horse Method

¹ Center for Nuclear Study, University of Tokyo, Wako, Japan
² INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
³ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Catania, Catania, Italy
⁴ Institute of Nuclear Physics of National Nuclear Center, Almaty Kazakhstan
⁵ Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Astana, Kazakhstan
⁶ Uzbek. Acad. Sci., Inst. Nucl. Phys., Tashkent, Uzbekistan
⁷ MTA-Atomiki, Debrecen, Hungary
⁸ The H. Niewodniczański Institute of Nuclear Physics PAN, Kraków, Poland
⁹ Heavy Ion Laboratory, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
¹⁰ National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute”, Moscow, Russia
¹¹ Kore University of Enna, Enna, Italy

Published online: 11 May 2016

Abstract

The ¹⁶O+¹⁶O fusion reaction is important in terms of the explosive oxygen burning process during late evolution stage of massive stars as well as understanding of the mechanism of low-energy heavy-ion fusion reactions. We aim to determine the excitation function for the most major exit channels, α+²⁸Si and p+³¹P, toward stellar energies indirectly by the Trojan Horse Method via the ¹⁶O(²⁰Ne, α²⁸Si)α and ¹⁶O(²⁰Ne, p³¹P)α three-body reactions. We report preliminary results involving reaction identification, and determination of the momentum distribution of α-¹⁶O intercluster motion in the projectile ²⁰Ne nucleus.