Eur. Phys. J. A (2015) 51: 94
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2015-15094-y

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Resonance strengths in the ^17,18O(p, α)^14,15N reactions and background suppression underground

Commissioning of a new setup for charged-particle detection at LUNA

¹ SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
² INFN, Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso, Assergi, Italy
³ Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, (HZDR), Dresden, Germany
⁴ INFN, Sezione di Padova, Padova, Italy
⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Università di Padova, Padova, Italy
⁶ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Genova, INFN, Genova, Italy
⁷ Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università di Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli, Italy
⁸ Institute of Nuclear Research, (MTA Atomki), Debrecen, Hungary
⁹ Dipartimento di Fisica Sperimentale, Università degli Studi di Torino, Torino, Italy
¹⁰ Università degli Studi di Milano and INFN, Milano, Italy
¹¹ INFN, Roma, Italy
¹² Osservatorio Astronomico di Collurania, Teramo, Italy
¹³ South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, 57701, Rapid City, SD, USA

^* e-mail: m.aliotta@ed.ac.uk

Received: 9 July 2015
Accepted: 15 July 2015
Published online: 4 August 2015

Abstract

We report on measurements of resonance strengths and energies for the and 193 keV resonances in the ¹⁸O(p,)¹⁵N and ¹⁷O(p,)¹⁴N reactions, respectively, obtained during commissioning of a new setup for alpha-particle detection studies at the LUNA underground laboratory. Our values, meV and meV, are in excellent agreement with those reported in the literature. New values of resonance energies are keV and keV, respectively, this latter with the highest precision to date. Comparative background measurements in silicon detectors overground and underground were also carried out, yielding up to a factor of 15 in background suppression at LUNA at energies around 200keV. This clearly demonstrates the usefulness of underground measurements in charged-particles experiments, especially at low detection energies.