$^26$Al Beam Production and its Application to Nuclear Astrophysics

Presumably produced during the supernova stage of stellar evolution, $^{26}$Al offers unique opportunities to better understand the processes of nucleosynthesis occurring in pre-SN phases of stellar evolution and within the Galactic disk. When decaying to $^{26}$Mg, $^{26}$Al emits a unique 1.8MeV gamma ray, detectable by satellite telescopes. The production and destruction pathways of $^{26}$Al is a key portion of understanding the on-going stellar nucleosynthesis. In order to measure the cross-section of $^{26}$Al(n, p) $^{26}$Mg at the astrophysical relevant energies, an indirect method, called the Trojan Horse Method(THM), is utilized. The THM allows the study of neutron induced reactions at astrophysical energies via the d break-up. This method requires the three-body cross section for the $^{26}$Al(d, p $^{26}$Mg)H reaction to be measured at a beam of 60 MeV. This requires that the $^{26}$Al secondary beam is produced by the MARS facility at Cyclotron institute of Texas A{\&}M University from a primary $^{26}$Mg beam (E$\approx $16MeV/u) impinging on a H$_{2}$ target. $^{26}$Al beam was then degraded to 2.25MeV/u energy by means of a Beryllium foil. The obtained results will be shown and discussed in details together with the features of the obtained intense and pure beam.