Coulomb dissociation of 27P: A reaction of astrophysical interest

Abstract

The ground-state decay of 26Al(0+) (T 1/2=1.05× 106) has a shorter life-time than the Universe. The presence of this element in the Galaxy was measured via g-ray spectroscopy, showing that the nucleosynthesis of this element is an ongoing process in stars. The proton-capture reaction 26Si(p,γ) 27P competes with the production of 26Al(0+) by β-decay. Coulomb dissociation of 27P has been suggested as an indirect method to measure radiative-proton capture when the direct reaction is not feasible. Such an experiment was performed at GSI with a secondary 27P beam produced by fragmenting a 36Ar primary beam at 500 A MeV. Two main observables are preliminarily presented in this work: the reaction cross section and the relative-energy spectrum of the outgoing fragments © Copyright owned by the author(s).