30S RI beam production and X-ray bursts

The present work reports the results of ³⁰S radioactive beam development for a future experiment directly measuring data to extrapolate the ³⁰S(α,p) stellar reaction rate in Type I X-ray bursts, a phenomena where nuclear explosions occur repeatedly on the surface of accreting neutron stars. We produce the radioactive ion ³⁰S via the ³He(²⁸Si,³⁰S)n reaction, by bombarding a cryogeni-cally cooled target of ³He at 400 Torr and 80 K with ²⁸Si beams of 6.9 and 7.54 MeV/u. In order to perform a successful future experiment which allows us to calculate the stellar ³⁰S(α, p) reaction rate, Hauser-Feshbach calculations indicate we require a ³⁰S beam of ∼ 10⁵ particles per second (pps) at ∼ 32 MeV. Based on our recent beam development experiments in 2006 and 2008, it is believed that such a beam may be fabricated in 2009 according to the results presented. We plan to measure the ⁴He(³⁰S,p) cross-section at astrophysical energies in 2009, and some brief remarks on the planned (α,p) technique are also elucidated. © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlikeLicence.