New approach for measuring properties of rp-process nuclei

A new experimental approach was developed that can reduce the uncertainties in astrophysical rapid proton capture (rp) process calculations due to nuclear data. This approach utilizes neutron removal from a radioactive ion beam to populate the nuclear states of interest. Excited states were deduced by the gamma-decay spectra measured in a semiconductor Ge-detector array. In the first case studied, 33Ar, excited states were measured with uncertainties of several keV. The 2 orders of magnitude improvement in the uncertainty of the level energies resulted in a 3 orders of magnitude improvement in the uncertainty of the calculated 32Cl(p,gamma)33Ar rate that is critical to the modeling of the rp process. This approach has the potential to measure key properties of almost all interesting nuclei on the rp-process path.