Abstract
An approach is presented to experimentally constrain previously unreachable (, ) reaction rates on nuclei far from stability in the astrophysical process. Energies of all critical resonances in the reaction are deduced by populating states in with a (, ) reaction in inverse kinematics at , and detecting -ray-recoil coincidences with the state-of-the-art -ray tracking array GRETINA and the S800 spectrograph at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory. The results reduce the uncertainty in the reaction rate by several orders of magnitude. The effective lifetime of , an important waiting point in the process in x-ray bursts, can now be determined entirely from experimentally constrained reaction rates.
- Received 19 March 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.032502
© 2014 American Physical Society