Measurement of the17O(p,γ)18F reaction rate at astrophysically relevant energies

Abstract

The ${}^{17}$O($p,\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\gamma}$)${}^{18}$F reaction plays an important role in hydrogen-burning nucleosynthesis. Conflicting values for the low-energy behavior of its cross section exist in the literature. We present direct measurements of the astrophysical $S$ factor of the ${}^{17}$O($p,\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}\ensuremath{\gamma}$)${}^{18}$F reaction at center-of-mass energies between 250 and 500 keV. These measurements were conducted in inverse kinematics at the DRAGON recoil separator.