Analysis of the19F(p, α0)16O reaction at low energies and the spectroscopy of20Ne

The investigation of the 19F(p, α0) reaction at low bombarding energies allows the study of the spectroscopy of the 20Ne compound nucleus in an energy region where the existence of quartet excitations has been suggested in the literature. Moreover, this reaction plays a major role in the fourth branch of the CNO cycle since it is relevant for the correct description of the hydrogen burning of fluorine in stars. For these reasons, we decided to investigate the 19F(p, α0) reaction in the Ep ≃ 0.6-1 MeV energy range. The analysis of angular distributions and excitation functions allows one to improve the 20Ne spectroscopy in an excitation energy region where some ambiguities concerning Jπ assignments exist in the literature. In particular, the present data suggest a Jπ = 0 + assignment to the Ex = 13.642 MeV resonance. For this state, both partial and reduced widths for the α0 channel have been deduced. The trend of the astrophysical factor has been obtained from the integrated cross section. A comparison of the present results with data reported in the literature is also discussed.