J. J. Marsh, C. G. Bruno, T. Davinson, P. J. Woods, Z. Andelkovic, L. Barbieri, D. Bemmerer, A. Biniskos, D. Boudefla, P. Corvisiero, L. Csedreki, S. F. Dellmann, S. Fedotova, D. Friere-Fernández, O. Forstner, J. Glorius, A. Gumberidze, E. O. Hanu, F. Herfurth, P.-M. Hillenbrand, N. Hubbard, A. Kalinin, C. Krantz, M. Lestinsky, Yu. Litvinov, E. Masha, E. B. Menz, D. A. Müller, C. Nociforo, N. Petridis, D. Robb, A. Rooney, M. S. Sanjari, R. S. Sidhu, J. Skowronski, U. Spillman, T. Stöhlker, G. Vorobyev, Y. H. Wang, H. Wilsenach, T. Yamaguchi
Abstract Heavy-ion storage rings present a novel approach to studying nuclear reactions for astrophysics that have so far resisted traditional methods. In this paper, we report the first nuclear reactions studied in a ring at sub-MeV centre-of-mass energies. This is a major advance in nuclear reaction measurements at rings that lays the foundations for future investigations to address key problems in nuclear astrophysics affecting a wide range of stellar environments. We investigated the $$^{15}$$ 15 N(p,p) $$^{15}$$ 15 N and $$^{15}$$ 15 N(p, $$\alpha $$ α ) $$^{12}$$ 12 C reactions in inverse kinematics from E = 1.125 MeV/u down to E = 426 keV/u, using the CARME array in the low-energy CRYRING@ESR heavy-ion storage ring, located at the GSI Helmholtz Center for Heavy Ion Research. Our (p,p) scattering results are in excellent agreement with theoretical R matrix predictions. We also report on a (p, $$\alpha $$ α ) measurement at E = 426 keV/u, corresponding to E $$_\textrm{cm}$$ cm = 403 keV, by far the lowest energy at which a nuclear reaction has ever been measured in a heavy-ion storage ring.