Münster 2002 – scientific programme

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HK: Physik der Hadronen und Kerne

HK 25: Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics III

HK 25.3: Talk

Wednesday, March 13, 2002, 11:30–11:45, C

Study of the ¹⁴N(p,γ)¹⁵O reaction at low energies — •Frank Strieder — Institut für Physik mit Ionenstrahlen, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany

The ¹⁴N(p,γ)¹⁵O capture reaction is a crucial reaction in stellar models, being the limiting reaction in the CNO cycle. Therefore, this reaction controlls not only the energy generation in the CNO cycle but also influences the determination of the age of globular clusters in our galaxy. The cross section of the ¹⁴N(p,γ)¹⁵O reaction has already been measured by different groups but large uncertainties remain in the absolute value of the astrophysical S factor. By using the new 400 kV LUNA accelerator at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory (LNGS) the cross section of this reaction will be studied complementary with a solid and a gas target to energies far below the 278 keV resonance. The solid target set-up consists of targets produced by plasma deposition techniques and several large volume HPGe detectors taking advantage of the very low γ-ray background at LNGS. The gas target set-up is based on a large BGO summing crystal and a windowless gas target system with the target chamber placed inside the detector central hole. A progress report on the details of the experiments and the first results will be given in this talk.