Spins and parities of astrophysically important S states from Si(He, )S

Setoodehnia, K.*; Chen, A. A.*; Komatsubara, Tetsuro*; Kubono, Shigeru*; Binh, D. N.*; Carpino, J. F.*; Chen, J.*; Hashimoto, Takashi*; Hayakawa, Takehito; Ishibashi, Yoko*; Ito, Yuta*; Kahl, D.*; Moriguchi, Tetsuro*; Oishi, Hiroto*; Ozawa, Akira*; Shizuma, Toshiyuki; Sugiyama, Yasuo*; Yamaguchi, Hidetoshi*

The structure of proton-unbound S states strongly determines the thermonuclear P(, )S reaction rate at temperatures characteristic of explosive hydrogen burning in classical novae and type I X-ray bursts. Specifically, the rate had been previously predicted to be dominated by two low-lying, unobserved, levels in the =4.7-4.8 MeV region, with spin and parity assignments of 3 and 2. In recent experimental work, two candidate levels were observed with energies of 4.699 MeV and 4.814 MeV, but no experimental information on their spins and parities was obtained. We have performed an in-beam -ray spectroscopy study of S with the Si(He, )S reaction. The spin and parities were inferred from a comparison to the known decay schemes of the corresponding mirror states.