1. Trojan Horse Method: a useful tool for electron screening effect investigation
- Author
-
Claudio Spitaleri, T. Wakabayashi, A. Tumino, Shigeru Kubono, A. Szanto de Toledo, Livio Lamia, J. Mrazek, H. Yamaguchi, S. Romano, M. L. Sergi, Chengbo Li, V. Burjan, M. La Cognata, C. Rolfs, Qun-Gang Wen, N. Carlin, R. G. Pizzone, M. Gimenez del Santo, S. Zhou, Silvio Cherubini, and V. Kroha
- Subjects
Nuclear reaction ,Physics ,Nuclear physics ,Nuclear and High Energy Physics ,Screening effect ,Coulomb barrier ,Electron ,Fermion ,Adiabatic process ,Charged particle ,Ion - Abstract
Direct measurements in the last decades have highlighted a new problem related to the lowering of the Coulomb barrier between the interacting nuclei due to the presence of the “electron screening” in the laboratory measurements. It was systematically observed that the presence of the electronic cloud around the interacting ions in measurements of nuclear reactions cross sections at astrophysical energies gives rise to an enhancement of the astrophysical S(E)-factor as lower and lower energies are explored [H. Assenbaum, K. Langanke, C. Rolfs, Z. Phys. 327 (1987) 461]. Moreover, at present such an effect is not well understood as the value of the potential for screening extracted from these measurements is higher than the upper limit of theoretical predictions (adiabatic limit). On the other hand, the electron screening potential in laboratory measurement is different from that occurring in stellar plasmas thus the quantity of interest in astrophysics is the so-called “bare nucleus cross section”. This quantity can only be extrapolated in direct measurements. These are the reasons that led to a considerable growth on interest in indirect measurement techniques and in particular the Trojan Horse Method (THM) [G. Baur, Phys. Lett. B 178 , (1986) 135; S. Cherubini et al. Ap. J. 457 , (1996) 855] Results concerning the bare nucleus cross sections measurements will be shown in several cases of astrophysical interest. In those cases the screening potential evaluated by means of the THM will be compared with the adiabatic limit and results arising from extrapolation in direct measurements.
- Published
- 2010
- Full Text
- View/download PDF