The triple alpha reaction rate and the 2${}^{+}$ resonances in ${}^{12}$C

Abstract

The triple alpha rate is obtained from the three-body bound and continuum states computed in a large box. The results from this genuine full three-body calculation are compared with standard reference rates obtained by two sequential two-body processes. The fairly good agreement relies on two different assumptions about the lowest $2^{+}$ resonance energy. With the same $2^{+}$ energy the rates from the full three-body calculation are smaller than those of the standard reference. We discuss the rate dependence on the experimentally unknown $2^{+}$ energy. Substantial deviations from previous results appear for temperatures above 3 GK.

To be published in Physics Letters B

References in corpus (4)

• Structure of low-lying 12C-resonances
• Momentum distributions of $\alpha$-particles from decaying low-lying ${}^{12}$C-resonances
• Three-body structure of low-lying 12Be states
• Cluster sum rules for three-body systems with angular-momentum dependent interactions