Towards a high-precision measurement of the 3He(α, γ)7Be cross section at LUNA

The (3)He((4)He, gamma)(7)Be reaction is the key process for the production of (7)Be and (8)B neutrinos in the Sun. We have designed a new experimental setup to study this reaction with high accuracy at low energies using two different experimental techniques. The first method consists in measuring the prompt capture gamma-ray transitions with an ultra-low background germanium detector heavily shielded and placed at close distance from a (3)He windowless gas target. With another fully shielded large-volume germanium detector we will also measure the beta-decay of the (7)Be residual nuclei. The aim of the experiment is to reduce the error on the astrophysical factor S(3,4) to 4%