Recent Achievements of the ERNA Collaboration

Raffaele Buompane,Lucio Gialanella,Lizeth Morales-Gallegos,Gianluca Imbriani,Mauro Romoli,Antonino Di Leva

doi:10.3390/universe8020135

Abstract

For more than two decades, the ERNA collaboration has investigated nuclear processes of astrophysical interest through the direct measurement of cross sections or the identification of the nucleosynthesis effects. Measurements of cross-section, reported in this publication, of radiative capture reactions have been mainly conducted using the ERNA Recoil Mass Separator, and more recently with an array of charged particle detector telescopes designed for nuclear astrophysics measurements. Some results achieved with ERNA will be reviewed, with a focus on the results most relevant for nucleosynthesis in AGB and advanced burning phases.

Highlights

Radiative capture reactions involving hydrogen or helium are of key importance for stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis when the latter occurs in massive stars [1]
The European Recoil Separator for Nuclear Astrophysics (ERNA) is a recoil mass separator (RMS) designed with the main goal of determining the 12C(α, γ)16O reaction cross-section, with the effort of the collaboration bearing the same name since 1998
It was possible to get a new insight on the relevance of the cascade transitions that were later investigated by DRAGON [35] and ERNA [36]

Summary

Introduction

Radiative capture reactions involving hydrogen or helium are of key importance for stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis when the latter occurs in massive stars [1]. While γ-ray spectroscopy offers several advantages, when measuring the extremely low cross sections that characterize nuclear processes of astrophysical interest, it encounters severe limitations owing to the various backgrounds due to cosmic rays, natural radioactivity, and beam-induced parasitic reactions. The direct detection of the nuclei produced in the reaction is being exploited since a few decades. This can be achieved, at the cost of a significant technical complication, using a recoil mass separator (RMS). The European Recoil Separator for Nuclear Astrophysics (ERNA) is a RMS designed with the main goal of determining the 12C(α, γ)16O reaction cross-section, with the effort of the collaboration bearing the same name since 1998. The ERNA Collaboration studied several processes with the RMS, with charged particle spectroscopy, and ran other experiments [4,5,6,7,8,9,10]

Methods

Results

Conclusion