Study of the ⁴⁴Ti(α, p)⁴⁷V reaction rate using high-precision ⁵⁰Cr(p, t)⁴⁸Cr measurements

Abstract

The abundance and distribution of 44Ti tells us about the nature of the core-collapse supernovae explosions. There is a need to understand the nuclear reaction network creating and destroying 44Ti in order to use it as a probe for the explosive mechanism. The 44Ti(α, p)47V reaction is a very important reaction and it controls the destruction of 44Ti. Difficulties with direct measurements have led to an attempt to study this reaction indirectly. Here, the first step of the indirect study which is the identification of levels of the compound nucleus 48Cr is presented. A 100-MeV proton beam was incident on a 50Cr target. States in 48Cr were populated in the 50Cr(p, t)48Cr reaction. The tritons were momentum-analysed in the K600 Q2D magnetic spectrometer at iThemba LABS.