Remeasuring the resonance strength of the 21Ne(p,gamma)22Na reaction at DRAGON

Novae are explosive astrophysical events which provide a unique environment for nucleosynthesis. Oxygen-Neon(O-Ne) novae caused by the thermonuclear runaway of accreted material on the white dwarf of a close binary system can reach peak temperatures of 0.1-0.4 GK. These novae are particularly important for the production of higher mass nuclides through cycles such as the Ne-Na cycle. The 21Ne(p,gamma)22Na reaction of the Ne-Na cycle is of great interest in studying these events due to the beta decay and subsequent release of a characteristic gamma ray at 1.275 MeV and the relatively long half-life of 2.6 years. Current satellites have the capability to detect gammas of this energy but to date, no gammas from the 22Na decay have been detected and this remains a problem in understanding novae nucleosynthesis. The 21Ne(p,gamma)22Na reaction was measured at Ecm=258.6 keV in inverse kinematics at the DRAGON recoil separator as a part of the commissioning measurements and yielded a resonance strength over twice the literature value measured by Gorres et al.. This reaction was then remeasured in order to resolve this discrepancy. Preliminary results and analysis will be discussed.