Find the expression for coulomb energy experienced

by 1H or 4He when interacting with nuclei.

Find the expression for reaction cross-section for

thermonuclear fusion reaction. Discuss the term
transition probability and reaction rate.
Find the expression for coulomb energy experienced
by 1H or 4He when interacting with nuclei.
Let us have a look on few reactions: Electrostatic Repulsion!

In these thermonuclear
2H + 1H  3He + g PPI fusion reaction, the
projectile particles (1H,
7Be + 1H  8B + g PPIII 4He, etc) experience

electrostatic repulsive
7Li + 1H  4He + 4He PPII force when incident on
a target nuclei. These
12C + 1H  13N + g CNO repulsions are due to
the protons. In 1938,
14N + 1H  15O + g CNO
Bethe suggested that
nuclear coulomb
16O + 4He  20Ne + g a-process
energy can be
a-process calculated using
24Mg + 4He  28Si + g
classical method.
Classically, a nucleus can be considered to be analogous to a
uniformly charged sphere of radius R having charge density,

The potential due to such a V(R)

V(R)
sphere at the surface r = R is,
R
2
o
The electric field intensity at
r < R is, r
V(r) = ?
 3
Now, integrating this equation from r to R, we get,
Substituting the values of r from (1) and V(R) from (2), we
get,

Again substituting the values of r from (1) here,

On simplifying,
4
The potential energy of this charge R
distribution is termed as nuclear o
coulomb energy. Therefore,
r
5 V(r) = ?
 6

This is our required expression for nuclear coulomb energy

experienced by incident particles due to the presence of
target nuclei in the stellar core.
The difference in nuclear coulomb energy DEc , between two
neighboring nuclei of charges Ze and (Z+1)e having the same
radius R is given by,

7
This is our required expression.
Find the expression for reaction cross-section for
thermonuclear fusion reaction. Discuss the term
transition probability and reaction rate.
Coulomb interaction Yukawa
interaction

Target
nucleus

Spin-orbit coupling can

not be ruled out!
As soon as projectile particle approaches to the nuclei at the
target, the coulomb interaction can not be avoided (just
before entering to the Yukawa potential). In addition, at the
surface of the target, the spin-orbit interaction can not be
avoided.
 The reaction cross-section is a measure of probability of a
fusion reaction as a function of the relative velocity of two
reactant nuclei. Let us consider a typical nuclear reaction:
a + b  [X]*  c + d ± Q
Incident Compound nucleus Product
particle nuclei
Released or
Target Decays Residual absorbed
nucleus immediately nuclei energy

Here, a and b represent the initial and c and d, the final products. The
compound state is an intermediate state in the nuclear reaction in which
the incident particle combines with the target nucleus and its nuclear
coulomb energy is shared among all the nucleons of the system.
 In 1936, Bohr proposed Electrostatic
compound nucleus hypothesis. Repulsive Force
According to this, nuclear + +
reaction takes place in two
steps: Nuclear
(a) The incident particle coulomb
together with the target energy is
nucleus forms the shared + +
compound nucleus in among
which energy is shared nuclei.
among all nucleons.
The energy sharing process is not
(b) In the process of energy homogeneous, leading a nuclear
sharing by the nuclei, a reaction.
relatively large energy can
be concentrated into one This can be estimated using nuclear
of the nucleons. reaction cross-section!
The cross-section of the reaction is defined as the transition
rate per unit incident per target particle.

1
Let ‘a’ and ‘b’ represent projectile and target nucleus. The
density of particle in incident beam is na.Let nb be the number
of particle in the target per unit area. The incident flux per
target particle is,
2
Let vi and vf represent relative initial and final velocities.
Equation (1) can be written as,
3

The transition rate can be calculated by using Fermi Golden

rule.
 In quantum mechanics, Fermi Golden Rule is the way to
calculate transition rate (probability of transition per unit
time) from one energy eigenstate of a quantum system into a
continuum of energy eigenstates, due to perturbation.
Let us take a system with an eigenstate , of a given
Hamiltonian H0.
Now we consider effect of perturbing hamiltonian H’. If H’ is
time independent, the system goes into only those states in
the continuum that have the same energy as the initial state.
If H’ is oscillating as a function of time, with an angular
frequency w, the transition is into states with energies that
differ by from the energy of the initial state.
In both cases, one-to-many transition probability from initial
to final state is given by,
In both cases, one-to-many transition probability from initial
to final state is given by,

Matrix element Density of final states

Here the matrix element contains various dynamical features

of the interactions: coupling strength, energy distribution,
angular distribution, etc.
In stellar nucleosynthesis, the product particles are not
produced in an isotropic manner. It is because of temperature
variation and changing chemical composition!
The density of final states is given by,
5
Here E represents total energy in the centre of mass system.
In the phase space, number of states is given by,

In our case, 6
Here dW represents the solid angle containing the final state
particle. The final state momentum and spin multiplicity of
final states are represented by pf and gs.
Therefore,
7
Here the term reduces to,

Since the nucleons are non-

relativistic in the stellar core!

Substituting this in (7),

8

Therefore, equation (4) can be written as,

Locking the
constant term in
the matrix
element!
We have,
9

Substituting this in equation (3),

10

Therefore, nuclear reaction cross-section is inversely

proportional to the product of the initial and final relative
velocities! Thus,
Thus,

11
Here, Sc and Sd are spins of product particles c and d. The
number of possible substates for them are (2Sc+1) and
(2Sd+1).

It should be remembered that the probability that any

incident particle will hit a target is s nb and the number of
interactions per unit area per second will be nanbs vi.