Single and double proton emissions from the O-14+He-4 interaction
Abstract
We observed single and double proton emissions in the O-14+He-4 interaction by the thick target inverse kinematic (TTIK) method at initial energy for O-14 at 32.7 MeV. We found that the protons mainly originate from the resonance excitation of states in Ne-18. The observed states in Ne-18 decay by protons mainly to proton unstable states in F-17. It was found that the decay of a state in Ne-18 at E-ex=8.45 MeV demonstrates the features of a decay by a correlated proton pair. The observed properties of the O-14+He-4 interaction make a previous interpretation for the rate of O-14(He-4, p)F-17 at astrophysical energies suspect. We show how the TTIK method should be modified to obtain the data of astrophysical interest.