The Beta Delayed Proton and Gamma Decay of $^{27}$P For Nuclear Astrophysics

The creation site of $^{26}$Al is still under debate. It is thought to be produced in hydrogen burning and in explosive helium burning in novae and supernovae, and possibly also in the H-burning in outer shells of red giant stars. Also, the reactions for its creation or destruction are not completely known. When $^{26}$Al is created in novae, the reaction chain is: $^{24}$Mg(p,$\gamma )^{25}$Al($\beta $+v)$^{25}$Mg(p,$\gamma )^{26}$Al, but this chain can be by-passed by another chain: $^{25}$Al(p,$\gamma )^{26}$Si(p,$\gamma )^{27}$P and it can also be destroyed directly. The reaction $^{26m}$Al(p,$\gamma )^{27}$Si* is another avenue to bypass the production of $^{26}$Al and it is dominated by resonant capture. We study these resonances by an indirect method, through the $\beta $-decay of $^{27}$P. We use $^{27}$P produced and separated with MARS and a setup which allows increased efficiency for low energy protons and for high-energy gamma-rays. We measure gamma-rays and $\beta $-delayed protons emitted from states above the proton threshold in the daughter nucleus $^{27}$Si (S$_{p}$ = 7.463 MeV) to identify and characterize the resonances. Its lifetime was also measured with accuracy under 1{\%}.