Abstract
The Trojan Horse Method (THM) represents an indirect path to determine the bare nucleus astrophysical S-factor for reactions among charged particles at astrophysical energies. This is achieved by measuring the quasi-free cross section of a suitable three-body process. The method is also suited to study neutron-induced reactions, especially in the case of radioactive ion beams. A comprehensive review of the theoretical as well as experimental features behind the THM is presented here. An overview is given of some recent applications to demonstrate the method's practical use for reactions that have a great impact on selected astrophysical scenarios.
Highlights
Which can be calculated once the plasma screening potential Upl is known, depending on important properties of the plasma such as the Debye-Hückel radius
The original idea to use breakup reactions as an indirect method to investigate low-energy charged particle reactions relevant for nuclear astrophysics was introduced in References 15 and 16
It is usually more suitable to keep the beam energy at a fixed value and to explore a certain range in ps and pxs around its QF value pQxsF = 0 with an upper limit κxs = 2μxsBxs that represents the on-energy-shell (OES) wave number of the bound state of a. This procedure, outlined first in Reference 18, is a different approach to the Trojan Horse Method (THM) compared with the original idea from Reference 15, where the relevant values of pxs were much larger because a high pxs was needed to compensate for the energy of the A + a relative motion
Summary
The original idea to use breakup reactions as an indirect method to investigate low-energy charged particle reactions relevant for nuclear astrophysics was introduced in References 15 and 16. The TH reaction is supposed to be surface dominated, and the usual reduction of the cross section of the subprocess by the Coulomb barrier will be suppressed because the particle x is brought close to the nucleus A inside the TH particle a at high energy In this original proposal of the THM, the tail of the x + s wave function in momentum space is explored. It is usually more suitable to keep the beam energy at a fixed value and to explore a certain range in ps and pxs around its QF value pQxsF = 0 with an upper limit κxs = 2μxsBxs that represents the on-energy-shell (OES) wave number of the bound state of a This procedure, outlined first in Reference 18, is a different approach to the THM compared with the original idea from Reference 15, where the relevant values of pxs were much larger (of the order of hundreds of MeV/c) because a high pxs was needed to compensate for the energy of the A + a relative motion. TH nuclei with a strong cluster component in an S-wave of relative motion are preferred—for instance, 2H for two-body reactions with protons or neutrons or 6Li for the transfer of deuterons or α particles
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