Total Cross-Section Measurement of ¹⁴O(α,p)¹⁷F with an Active Target Ionization Chamber

In certain stellar environments such as Type I X-ray Bursts, proton-capture rates exceed β-decay rates which induce burning processes like the hot-CNO cycle, which may ultimately transition to the rp-process. The ¹⁴O(α,p)¹⁷F reaction is thought to be a trigger reaction that induces this transition. Understanding this reaction is thus important to understanding how the rp-process proceeds in X-ray bursts. The Active Target High Efficiency detector for Nuclear Astrophysics (ATHENA) was built and commissioned at the Notre Dame Nuclear Science Lab for the purposes of measuring astrophysically important reactions with low-intensity radioactive beams. ATHENA will be used to measure the total cross section of the ¹⁴O(α,p)¹⁷F reaction with a radioactive ¹⁴O beam produced by the TriSol facility at Notre Dame. Preliminary results, plans, and comparisons to simulations will be discussed.