AGB nucleosynthesis: The ¹⁹F(α, p)²²Ne reaction at astrophysical energies

Learning how ¹⁹F is produced and destructed in AGB-stars is crucial. Fluorine abundance is in fact important, given that it is strongly tied to standard and extra-mixing processes taking place in AGB-stars. This kind of objects are considered to be the main sources of fluorine in galactic environment, in which experimental abundances are far overestimated. For this reason the reaction ¹⁹F(α, p)²²Ne, that represents the main destruction channel in He-rich environment, was studied at energies corresponding to T∼2·10⁸ K. Such reaction has been studied with direct method at E_beam = 1100 keV for alpha particles impinging on a fluorine target, corresponding to E_C.M. ∼ 900 keV, still far from the Gamow window, placed at 390÷800 keV, below the Coulomb barrier (3.81 MeV). An experiment was performed at Rujer Boskovic Institut (Zagreb), applying the Trojan Horse Method. With this experimental procedure we were able to select the quasi-free contribution coming from ⁶Li(¹⁹F,p ²²Ne)²H at E_beam = 6 MeV at kinematically useful angles. We measured the ¹⁹F(α, p)²²Ne at 0 MeV ≤ E_C.M ≤ 0.9 MeV, extracting the two body cross-section in absolute units at energies of astrophysical interest.