Nuclear Astrophysics with DRAGON at ISAC

ISAC, a new radioactive beam facility at TRIUMF in Canada, is presently operational and will provide a range of high-intensity short-lived beams with energies from 0.15 to 1.5 MeV/u, for studies in nuclear astrophysics and nuclear physics. One major application of such studies is in the expansion of our present understanding of stellar explosions such as novae and x-ray bursts, since the energy generation and nucleosynthesis in these settings are controlled mainly by reactions involving alpha- and proton-capture on unstable nuclei. In particular, key reactions in the Hot CNO cycles, NeNa and MgAl cycles, as well as reactions that may bridge the Hot CNO cycles to the αp- and rp-processes, are of special interest. Many of these reactions are presently not well understood, pointing to the need for laboratory measurements using radioactive beams. Part of the experimental effort at ISAC will center on using the DRAGON mass separator to measure these important capture reactions in inverse kinematics. This presentation will give an overview of the new ISAC facility, results from the commissioning of DRAGON and status of the initial experiments of the first reaction of interest, namely, ^1H(^21Na,^22Mg)γ.