Impact of ${}^{16}$O($\gamma$,$\alpha$)${}^{12}$C measurements on the ${}^{12}$C($\alpha ,\gamma$)${}^{16}$O astrophysical reaction rate

Abstract

The ${}^{12}$C($\alpha ,\gamma$)${}^{16}$O reaction, an important component of stellar helium burning, plays a key role in nuclear astrophysics. It has direct impact on the evolution and final state of massive stars, while also influencing the elemental abundances resulting from nucleosynthesis in such stars. Providing a reliable estimate for the energy dependence of this reaction at stellar helium burning temperatures has been a major goal for the field. In this work, we study the role of potential new measurements of the inverse reaction, ${}^{16}$O($\gamma ,\alpha$)${}^{12}$C, in reducing the overall uncertainty. A multilevel R-matrix analysis is used to make extrapolations of the astrophysical S factor for this reaction to the stellar energy of 300 keV. The statistical precision of the S-factor extrapolation is determined by performing multiple fits to existing E1 and E2 ground state capture data, including the impact of possible future measurements of the ${}^{16}$O($\gamma ,\alpha$)${}^{12}$C reaction. In particular, we consider a proposed JLab experiment that will make use of a high-intensity low-energy bremsstrahlung beam that impinges on an oxygen-rich single-fluid bubble chamber in order to measure the total cross section for the inverse reaction. The importance of low energy data as well as high precision data is investigated.

References in corpus (4)

• The 12C(a,g)16O reaction and its implications for stellar helium burning
• Precise Determination of Charge Dependent Pion-Nucleon-Nucleon Coupling Constants
• Astrophysical $S_{E2}$ factor of the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}(\alpha ,\gamma ){}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ reaction through the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}({}^{11}\mathrm{B},{}^7\mathrm{Li}){}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ transfer reaction
• First Accurate Normalization of the $\beta$-delayed $\alpha$ Decay of ${}^{16}$N and Implications for the ${}^{12}$C$(\alpha ,\gamma {)}^{16}$O Astrophysical Reaction Rate

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Constraints from gravitational wave detections of binary black hole mergers on the ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}{\left(\alpha ,\gamma \right)}^{16}\mathrm{O}$ rate
• The most ordinary formation of the most unusual double black hole merger
• Expanding Nuclear Physics Horizons with the Gamma Factory
• Revisiting the explodability of single massive star progenitors of stripped-envelope supernovae
• A new ${}^{12}$C + ${}^{12}$C nuclear reaction rate: impact on stellar evolution
• The Status and Future of Direct Nuclear Reaction Measurements for Stellar Burning
• Impact of ${}^{16}$O($e,e^{\prime }\alpha$)${}^{12}$C measurements on the ${}^{12}$C($\alpha ,\gamma$)${}^{16}$O astrophysical reaction rate