Measurement of the cross section of the 8Li(d,α)6He reaction of possible relevance to big bang nucleosynthesis

Abstract

We report measurements of the cross section of the 8Li(d,α)6He reaction in the energy range Ec.m. = 2.3-3.5 MeV using a 8Li-radioactive beam on a CD2 foil. The astrophysical S factor and reaction rate were calculated from the measured cross section. The 6He nuclei produced in the reaction were detected in solid-state detector telescopes. This reaction might have affected the primordial abundance of 6Li in big bang nucleosynthesis, since 6He beta decays to 6Li. However, several big bang nucleosynthesis network calculations were found to be insensitive to this reaction, suggesting that the 8Li(d, α)6He reaction does not affect 6Li primordial production.