Astrophysical(α,γ) reaction in inverse kinematics; Electron screening effect in the beta-decay

Abstract

The abundance calculations of the p-nuclei produced in explosive stellar sites rely on the Hauser-Feshbach (HF) theory with the alpha-article optical model potential (α-OMP) one of its major ingredients. To date, most of the (α, γ) cross sections measured show that HF calculations can be wrong by a factor of ten or more especially when phenomenological α-OMP are employed. To investigate the relevant uncertainties entering the HF calculations and furthermore develop global microscopic α-OMPs, systematic (α, γ) cross-section measurements are necessary. This led us to perform a feasibility study of (α, γ) measurements in inverse kinematics that will allow us to employ also radioactive beams in the future. Hence, the 4He(78Kr,γ)82Sr reaction was studied using the LISE3 spectrometer to separate the 82Sr recoils from the primary 78Kr beam. Although an excellent rejection factor > 1010 was achieved, the position of the ions of interest was unexpectedly masked by a secondary beam of high intensity. Given these, new setup improvements are proposed to remove the pollutant ions. Recently, many experiments were conducted in order to study the influence of the environment (especially in a metallic material) on the decay probability of radioactive nuclei. Additionally, hydrogen-like fusion reactions were performed indicating a change in the cross-section due to the influence of the Coulomb field screening induced by quasi-free electrons in metals. This was explained by the Debye screening model which treats metallic electrons within Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics. We measured the decay rate of 19O in metallic, insulating and superconducting environments whereas the electrons in the superconductors should obey the Bose-Einstein statistics. The decay rate measurement was supported by a branching ratios measurement. We found that the effect on the decay rate, if any, is less than the 0.1%, far below the theoretical predictions.