Single and double proton emissions from the ¹⁴O+⁴He interaction

We observed single and double proton emissions in the ¹⁴O+⁴He interaction by the thick target inverse kinematic (TTIK) method at initial energy for ¹⁴O at 32.7 MeV. We found that the protons mainly originate from the resonance excitation of states in ¹⁸Ne. The observed states in ¹⁸Ne decay by protons mainly to proton unstable states in ¹⁷F. It was found that the decay of a state in ¹⁸Ne at E_ex=8.45 MeV demonstrates the features of a decay by a correlated proton pair. The observed properties of the ¹⁴O+⁴He interaction make a previous interpretation for the rate of ¹⁴O(⁴He, p)¹⁷F at astrophysical energies suspect. We show how the TTIK method should be modified to obtain the data of astrophysical interest.