Effects of nuclear molecular configurations on the astrophysical S-factor for $^{16}$O + $^{16}$O

TL;DR

This study investigates how nuclear molecular configurations influence the astrophysical S-factor for $^{16}$O + $^{16}$O, revealing the importance of neck formation and collective mass effects in accurately modeling experimental data.

Contribution

The paper introduces a realistic two-center shell model incorporating molecular effects, providing improved predictions of the S-factor without free parameters.

Findings

Molecular effects are crucial for accurate S-factor modeling.

Neck formation explains experimental data well.

S-factor does not decline at low energies as previously suggested.

Abstract

The impact of nuclear molecular configurations on the astrophysical S-factor for $^{16}$O + $^{16}$O is investigated within the realistic two-center shell model based on Woods-Saxon potentials. These molecular effects refer to the formation of a neck between the interacting nuclei and the radial dependent collective mass parameter. It is demonstrated that the former is crucial to explain the current experimental data with high accuracy and without any free parameter, whilst in addition the latter predicts a pronounced maximum in the S-factor. In contrast to very recent results by Jiang et al., the S-factor does not decline towards extremely low values as energy decreases.