Abstract
Classical novae are expected to contribute to the 1809-keV Galactic -ray emission by producing its precursor , but the yield depends on the thermonuclear rate of the unmeasured reaction. Using the decay of to populate the key resonance in this reaction, we report the first evidence for the observation of its exit channel via a primary ray, where the uncertainties are statistical and systematic, respectively. By combining the measured -ray energy and intensity with other experimental data on , we find the center-of-mass energy and strength of the resonance to be and , respectively, where the last uncertainties are from adopted literature data. We use hydrodynamic nova simulations to model production showing that these measurements effectively eliminate the dominant experimental nuclear-physics uncertainty and we estimate that novae may contribute up to 30% of the Galactic .
- Received 20 August 2013
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.111.232503
© 2013 American Physical Society