Fusion Reaction Measurements with the "Encore" Active Target Detector

"Encore" is an active target Multi-Sampling Ionization Chamber (MUSIC) detector developed at Florida State University. "Encore" consists of a segmented anode within a gas filled ionization chamber. The gas acts as the counting medium as well as provides the target material. This allows "Encore" to measure the loss of energy of a beam of particles as it passes through the detector and interacts with the gas in the chamber in an event-by-event basis and thus it is able to extract a large portion of a reaction excitation function with a single beam energy. "Encore" is a flexible, portable, efficient detector which has been used to measure several nuclear reactions. In particular, fusion reactions important for stellar processes and nuclear structure information have been measured using CH2 as counting gas.In this work, the nuclear fusion interaction between 15N beam and 12C in the CH2 gas target is studied. The data gathered by the experiment is further analyzed and the cross-sections pertaining to these fusion interactions along the detector are measured and compared to known experimental outcomes.