A single fluid bubble chamber for measuring nuclear reaction rates of astrophysical importance.
Abstract
Radiative capture reactions, such as (α,γ), (p,γ) and (n,γ), are of fundamental importance to the study of nucleosynthesis of elements in stellar cores, supernovae, etc. In the laboratory, these reactions are usually measured by bombarding gas targets or very thin films with particle beams. The low density of these targets and the sensitivity to background from environmental and cosmic sources can lead to long running times. In this contribution we explain a method - using a single fluid bubble chamber to measure nuclear reaction cross sections. The higher density of the fluid and measuring the time-reversed reaction increases the luminosity of the experiment by several orders of magnitude. We have measured the cross section of the photodisintegration process 19F(γ,α)15N by bombarding a superheated fluid of C3F8 with Bremsstrahlung γ rays produced from the electron injector at Jefferson Laboratory reaching cross sections of the time-reversed 15N(α,γ)19F reaction of about 80 picobarn.
This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics, under Contracts No. DE-AC02-06CH11357 (ANL) and No. DE-AC05-06OR23177 (JLAB).- Publication:
-
APS April Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019APS..APRX12006N