Eur. Phys. J. Plus (2020) 135: 899
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-020-00906-7

Regular Article

AMS cross-section measurement for the $$^{28}$$Si(d,$$\alpha $$)$$^{26}$$Al reaction near the Coulomb barrier

¹ Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Av. Universidad 3000, 04510, Mexico City, Mexico
² Departamento de Aceleradores, Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Nucleares, Carretera México-Toluca, Km. 36.5, La Marquesa, C.P. 52750, Ocoyoacac, Mexico
³ Colegio Ciudad de México, Campos Elíseos 139, Col. Polanco, Miguel Hidalgo, C.P. 11560, Mexico City, Mexico

^* e-mail: lupilu3@ciencias.unam.mx

Received: 15 June 2020
Accepted: 30 October 2020
Published online: 12 November 2020

Abstract

Understanding the production of $$^{26}$$Al is important in nuclear physics, astrophysics (stellar nucleosynthesis), earth sciences and other fields. In previous years, we attempted to measure the $$^{28}$$Si(d,$$\alpha $$)$$^{26}$$Al reaction cross section at low energies. AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) at the LEMA (Laboratorio Nacional de Espectrometrometría de Masas con Aceleradores) facility at IFUNAM (Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) was used to measure the concentration of the produced $$^{26}$$Al in a mixture of Al/Si targets after irradiation with a deuteron beam. Those measurements showed that many improvements had to be made to our protocols in order to reach our goal. In this paper, the continuation of those studies is reported. We take advantage of the recently acquired expertise in the radio-chemistry process to separate aluminum from silicon. Deuteron beams with energies between 3.4 and 4.8 MeV were used to irradiate 5 $$\times $$ 5 $$\times $$ 0.3 mm$$^{3}$$ silicon slabs. Considering that the Coulomb barrier for touching spheres is around 4.7 MeV, our experiment explores an energy interval near the barrier, on the lower energy side. Here reaction cross sections are much larger than those expected at lower energies, toward the Gamow window, an energy range appropriate to develop and test the project’s strategy before tackling the lower energies (most relevant for astrophysics) where the cross sections drop exponentially.