VERIFICATION OF AN ACTIVITY-METHOD APPROACH TO DETERMINE THE α-PARTIAL WIDTH OF THE 4.03 MEV STATE IN 19Ne By

ii It is well established that the dominating contribution to energy production in stars comes from nuclear reactions. A large portion of a star’s lifetime is charac-terized by the fusion of hydrogen nuclei into helium through various methods. At temperatures above 0.1 GK, helium production is dominated by a series of cyclical nuclear reactions involving carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. These isotopes are used as catalysts that transform the hydrogen into helium in one of three processes that are referred to as the hot CNO cycles. As temperatures increase within the hydrogen burning region of the star alternative nuclear reactions become energetically allowed. These breakout reaction paths lead to thermonuclear runaway and nucleosynthesis of ions heavier than the A = 20 mass range via the rapid-proton capture (rp) process. The breakout process is common in many stellar environments and can occur by way of several nuclear reactions. One current topic of discussion is how the rate of the breakout process affects the behaviour of Type I X-ray bursts. Typ