Abstract
The s-process is responsible of the synthesis of most of the nuclei in the mass range 90 ≤ A ≤ 208. It consists in a series of neutron capture reactions on seed nuclei followed by β-decays, since the neutron accretion rate is slower than the β-decay rate. Such small neutron flux is supplied by the 13C(α,n)16O reaction. It is active inside the helium-burning shell of asymptotic giant branch stars, at temperatures < 108 K, corresponding to an energy interval of 140–230 keV. In this region, the astrophysical S (E)-factor is dominated by the −3 keV sub-threshold resonance due to the 6.356 MeV level in 17O. In this work, we have applied the Trojan Horse Method (THM) to the 13C(6Li,n16O)d quasi-free reaction to extract the 6.356 MeV level resonance parameters, in particular the asymptotic normalization coefficient . A preliminary analysis of a partial data set has lead to
, slightly larger than the values in the literature. However, the deduced 13C(α, n)16O reaction rate is in agreement with most results in the literature at ∼ 108 K, with enhanced accuracy thanks to our innovative approach merging together ANC and THM.

Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.