Quantifying the 12C + 12C sub-Coulomb fusion with the time-dependent wave-packet method

When?

Friday 19 October 2012, 14:00

Where?

13BB04

Open to:

Staff, Students

Speaker:

Alexis Diaz-Torres, ECT* Trento, Italy

Understanding the 12C + 12C sub-Coulomb fusion is a long-standing issue in heavy-ion physics. This reaction is critical for a number of stellar environments and conditions, and plays a key role in the chemical evolution of the Universe. Of importance is to know the fusion cross-section at energies near the Gamow peak (~ 1.5 MeV). It is usually obtained by extrapolating high-energy fusion data, as direct measurements are extremely difficult to carry out at very low incident energies (< 3 MeV). The presence of pronounced resonance structures in the observed fusion excitation curve makes the extrapolation very uncertain.

I will report on a preliminary study of this reaction using the time-dependent wave-packet method within a nuclear molecular picture. The theoretical sub-Coulomb resonances seem to correspond well with observations. The present method might be a more suitable tool for expanding the cross-section predictions towards lower energies than the commonly used potential-model approximation.