TheC12(α,γ)16O reaction: Effects of nuclear excitation on the breakup of aO16beam

Abstract
We present some preliminary calculations on cross sections for the breakup of O16 around 100 MeV/nucleon with emphasis on the effect of nuclear breakup on the angular distributions. Underlying the results of these calculations, the possibilities and problems of extracting the astrophysical S factor for the C12(α,γ)16O reaction at very low energies are discussed. Some considerations on the experimental conditions for a O16 breakup experiment aiming at this astrophysical information are given.