The 19F(alpha, p)22Ne Reaction at Energies of Astrophysical Relevance by Means of the Trojan Horse Method and Its Implications in AGB Stars

The main source of F-19 in the universe has not yet been clearly identified and this issue represents one of the unanswered questions of stellar modeling. This lack of knowledge can be due to the F-19(alpha, p)Ne-22 reaction cross-section that has proven to be difficult at low energies: direct measurements stop only at about similar to 660 keV, leaving roughly half of the astrophysical relevant energy region (from 200 keV to 1.1 MeV) explored only by R-matrix calculations. In this work, we applied the Trojan Horse Method to the quasi-free three-body Li-6(F-19, p(22)Ne)d reaction performed at E-beam = 6 MeV in order to indirectly study the F-19(alpha, p)Ne-22 reaction in the sub-Coulomb energy region. In this way, we obtained the cross-section and the reaction rate in the temperature region of interest for astrophysics and free from electron screening effects. A brief analysis of the impact of the new measured reaction rate in AGB star nucleosynthesis is also presented.