Universal behavior of $p$-wave proton-proton fusion near threshold

Journal Article · 19 August 2019 · Physical Review C

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.100.021001 · OSTI ID:1564103

Acharya, Bijaya ^[1]; Platter, Lucas J. ^[2]; Rupak, Gautam ^[3]

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1. Johannes Gutenberg Univ. Mainz, Mainz (Germany); Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
2. Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
3. Mississippi State Univ., Mississippi State, MS (United States)

We calculate the $p$-wave contribution to the proton-proton fusion S factor and its energy derivative in pionless effective-field theory (EFT) up to next-to-leading order. The leading contributions are given by a recoil piece from the Gamow-Teller and Fermi operators and from relativistic 1/ $m$ suppressed weak interaction operators. We obtain the value of (2.5 ± 0.3) × 10^–28 MeV fm² for the $S$ factor and (2.2 ± 0.2) × 10^–26 fm² for its energy derivative at threshold. Furthermore, these are smaller than the results of a prior study that employed chiral EFT by several orders of magnitude. We conclude that, contrary to what has been previously reported, the $p$-wave contribution does not need to be considered in a high-precision determination of the $S$ factor at astrophysical energies. Combined with the chiral EFT calculation of Acharya et al. [Phys. Lett. B 760, 584 (2016)] for the $s$-wave channel, this gives a total threshold $S$ factor of $S$(0) = (4.047$$^{+0.024}_{–0.032}$$) × 10^–23 MeV fm².

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); USDOE
• Grant/Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1564103
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1558159
• Journal Information: Physical Review C, Vol. 100, Issue 2; ISSN 2469-9985
• Publisher: American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English