Probing galactic 26Al with exotic ion beams

The goal of understanding the production of galactic ²⁶Al brings together progress in nuclear astrophysics from observations, theory, meteoritics, and laboratory experiments. In the case of experimental work, nuclear reactions involving unstable isotopes are being studied to elucidate the production of ²⁶Al in stellar explosive nucleosynthesis. We discuss a direct measurement of the ²⁶Al(p,γ)²⁷Si reaction with the DRAGON collaboration at TRIUMF, and a measurement of ²⁵Al+p elastic scattering with the CRIB (CNS-U.Tokyo) collaboration, toward constraining the ²⁵Al(p,γ)²⁶Si reaction. © 2006 American Institute of Physics.