The aim of experimental nuclear astrophysics is the measurement of astrophysically relevant burning reaction cross sections at the Gamow peak. However, in spite of the improvements for measuring at low-energies, the Gamow peak often remains far to be fully explored mainly in the case of charged-particles induced reactions. In such cases, both Coulomb barrier penetration and electron screening phenomena strongly affect the bare-nucleus cross section determination thus leaving extrapolation procedures as the only way for accessing the Gamow energy region. Among the available and developed indirect techniques, the Trojan Horse Method (THM) [1] allows the experimentalist to measure the bare-nucleus cross-section of a relevant reaction a+xc+C by properly selecting the quasi-free (QF) contribution of an appropriate reaction a+Ac+C+s, performed at energies well above the Coulomb barrier, where the nucleus A has a dominant x-s cluster configuration. Thanks to its momentum-energy prescription, the THM allows to explore a wide energy window in the center of mass system a + x by only using a monoenergetic beam [2]. Such advantage appears of great importance also in the case of nuclear reactions involving exotic nuclei or neutron induced reactions, thus justifying the recent THM application to reactions involved in explosive or primordial nucleosynthesis [3]. The talk is aimed at describing the experimental approach of the method, at underlying the steps of a THM-data analysis and at discussing the most recent results of interest for the nuclear astrophysics community.
[1] Tumino A. et al., Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Volume 71, pp. 345-376 (2021)
[2] Lamia L. et al. Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics, Volume 39, Issue 1, article id. 015106, 23 pp. (2012).
[3] Lamia L. et al., The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 879, Issue 1, article id. 23, 8 pp. (2019)
note: the seminar will be given within the Nuclear Astrophysics classroom and it is devoted to master students
Prof. Antonio Caciolli
