A Simulation of Secondary Proton Production in 12C + 12C Reaction Studies
June 2016
Jake Watson

The carbon-burning process is an important part of stellar nucleosynthesis – to better understand
it, the 12C (12C, p) 23Na and 12C (12C, α) 20Ne fusion reactions are studied at stellar energies. A highly
unlikely two-step process, due to hydrogen and deuterium contamination at levels of 0.3ppm and
0.005ppb respectively is capable of producing background radiation at the energies of interest. This
makes direct measurement of these reactions difficult. Here, the results of a computational
simulation aimed at modelling the three main beam-induced background reactions, the 12C (d, p)
13C, 12C (d, d) 12C, and 12C (p, p) 12C reactions, are reported. The simulation validates its results by
producing background peaks in line with observed spectra for both Rutherford scattering
reactions, and produces promising indications in preliminary fusion simulations.