Astrophysical reaction rate for the neutron-generator reaction 13C(alpha,n)16O in asymptotic giant branch stars

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Nov 10;97(19):192701. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.97.192701. Epub 2006 Nov 6.

Abstract

The reaction 13C(alpha,n) is considered to be the main source of neutrons for the s process in asymptotic giant branch stars. At low energies, the cross section is dominated by the 1/2+ 6.356 MeV subthreshold resonance in (17)O whose contribution at stellar temperatures is uncertain by a factor of 10. In this work, we performed the most precise determination of the low-energy astrophysical S factor using the indirect asymptotic normalization (ANC) technique. The alpha-particle ANC for the subthreshold state has been measured using the sub-Coulomb alpha-transfer reaction ((6)Li,d). Using the determined ANC, we calculated S(0), which turns out to be an order of magnitude smaller than in the nuclear astrophysics compilation of reaction rates.