Reduction of deuterium content in carbon targets for 12C + 12C reaction studies of astrophysical interest

L. Morales-Gallegos; M. Aliotta; C. G. Bruno; R. Buompane; T. Davinson; M. De Cesare; A. Di Leva; A. D’Onofrio; J. G. Duarte; L. R. Gasques; L. Gialanella; G. Imbriani; G. Porzio; D. Rapagnani; M. Romoli; D. Schürmann; F. Terrasi; L. Y. Zhang

doi:10.1140/epja/i2018-12564-8

2023 Impact factor 2.6

Hadrons and Nuclei

Open Access

Eur. Phys. J. A (2018) 54: 132
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2018-12564-8

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Reduction of deuterium content in carbon targets for ¹²C + ¹²C reaction studies of astrophysical interest

L. Morales-Gallegos¹^,2, M. Aliotta¹^,3^*, C. G. Bruno¹, R. Buompane³^,2, T. Davinson¹, M. De Cesare⁴^,2, A. Di Leva⁵^,2, A. D’Onofrio³^,2, J. G. Duarte³^,2, L. R. Gasques⁶^,3^,2, L. Gialanella³^,2, G. Imbriani⁵^,2, G. Porzio³, D. Rapagnani⁷^,8, M. Romoli², D. Schürmann³^,2, F. Terrasi³^,2 and L. Y. Zhang⁹^,1

¹ SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
² INFN, Sezione di Napoli, Napoli, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, Caserta, Italy
⁴ Centro Italiano di Ricerche Aerospaziali, Capua, Italy
⁵ Dipartimento di Fisica “E. Pancini”, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Napoli, Italy
⁶ Departamento de Física Nuclear, Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica e Geologia, Università degli Studi di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
⁸ INFN, Sezione di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
⁹ National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, China

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

Received: 16 March 2018
Accepted: 2 July 2018
Published online: 10 August 2018

Abstract

The ¹²C(¹²C,p)²³Na and ¹²C(¹²C, $\alpha$ )²⁰Ne fusion reactions are among the most important in stellar evolution since they determine the destiny of massive ( $M \simeq 8-10 M_{\odot}$ ) stars. However, experimental low-energy investigations of such reactions are significantly hampered by ubiquitous natural hydrogen and deuterium contaminants in the carbon targets. The associated beam-induced background completely masks the reaction products of interest thus preventing cross-section measurements at the relevant energies of astrophysical interest, $E_{\mathrm{cm}} < 2$ MeV. In this work, we report about an investigation aimed at assessing possible deuterium reductions on both natural graphite and Highly Ordered Pyrolytic Graphite targets as a function of target temperature. Our results indicate that reductions up to about 80% can be attained on both targets in the temperature range investigated, $T \simeq 200-1200 {}^{\circ}$ C. A further reduction by a factor of 2.5 in absolute deuterium content is observed when the scattering chamber is surrounded by a dry nitrogen atmosphere so as to minimise light-particles uptake within the chamber rest gas (and thus on target) through air leaks. The results from this study will inform the choice of optimal experimental conditions and procedures for improved measurements of the ¹²C + ¹²C reactions cross-sections at the low energies of astrophysical interest.