Current Research Program
The present program involves the production and use of low-energy, accelerated (0.15 - 1.5 MeV/u) radioactive beams at the new ISAC facility at TRIUMF (see also SFU TRIUMF). These beams are used to study reactions which occur during the ignition phase of cataclysmic nucleosynthesis events in stellar environments such as nova, x-ray bursts and perhaps supernovae. Rates of radiative alpha and proton capture reactions involving radioactive reactants are measured in inverse kinematics (heavy beam onto a light target) using the new DRAGON facility. This system is composed of a windowless gas target for hydrogen or helium systems, surrounded by a scintillator-based gamma array, and the resultant reaction recoil is separated from the beam in the complex electromagnetic mass separator and detected in the end detection system. These data are used to understand elemental formation in these rapid (seconds) stellar explosions.
