A laser application to nuclear astrophysics Available to Purchase

In the last decade, the availability in high-intensity laser beams capable of producing plasmas with ion energies large enough to induce nuclear reactions has opened new research paths in nuclear physics. We studied the reactions $3He(d,p)4He$ and $d(d,n)3He$ at temperatures of few keV in a plasma, generated by the interaction of intense ultrafast laser pulses with molecular deuterium or deuterated-methane clusters mixed with $3He$ atoms. The yield of 14.7 MeV protons from the $3He(d,p)4He$ reaction was used to extract the astrophysical S factor. Results of the experiment performed at the Center for High Energy Density Science at The University of Texas at Austin will be presented.