New Developments With the Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph at Florida State University
Erin Good, Louisiana State University
Accurate knowledge of various nuclear structure properties is needed to understand nucleosynthesis and the sites where stellar processes occur. Some of the heavier proton-rich elements are created in stellar explosions like classical novae and Type I X-ray bursts; however, the rates of many of the reactions that synthesize nuclei in these events have large uncertainties. Some reactions crucial to the understanding of these processes cannot be measured directly, so it is necessary to develop experimental setups that can measure the nuclear structure properties used to calculate these reaction rates.
The Enge Split-Pole Spectrograph (SPS), formerly at Yale University, has recently been installed at Florida State University and will be used to measure excitation energies, spins and branching ratios of resonances important in proton-capture reactions that cannot currently be directly measured. Here I discuss the design, testing and installation of two auxiliary detector systems to be used with the SPS: a charged-particle detector array called the Silicon Array for Branching Ratio Experiments (SABRE) and the focal plane detector, which has been installed and tested with the SPS magnet. The focal plane detector will now be used in the commissioning of the SPS during summer 2018. Both systems, in conjunction with the SPS, are crucial for the measurement of nuclear properties in order to accurately determine reaction rates and understand nucleosynthesis in these explosive events.
Abstract Author(s): E. Good, C.M. Deibel, K. Pham, P. Barber, J.C. Blackmon, P.D. Cottle, A.A.D. Hood, J.C. Lighthall, I. Wiedenhover