Advancement of photospheric radius expansion and clocked type-I x-ray burst models with the new $^{22}$Mg$(α,p)^{25}$Al reaction rate determined at Gamow energy [CL]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2108.04553


We report the first (in)elastic scattering measurement of $^{25}\mathrm{Al}+p$ with the capability to select and measure in a broad energy range the proton resonances in $^{26}$Si contributing to the $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ reaction at type I x-ray burst energies. We measured spin-parities of four resonances above the $\alpha$ threshold of $^{26}$Si that are found to strongly impact the $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ rate. The new rate advances a state-of-the-art model to remarkably reproduce lightcurves of the GS 1826$-$24 clocked burster with mean deviation $<$9 % and permits us to discover a strong correlation between the He abundance in the accreting envelope of photospheric radius expansion burster and the dominance of $^{22}$Mg$(\alpha,p)$ branch.

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J. Hu, H. Yamaguchi, Y. Lam, et. al.
Wed, 11 Aug 21
67/72

Comments: accepted by Physical Review Letters on 5 August 2021