Abstract
We discuss the use of one proton-removal reactions of loosely bound nuclei at intermediate energies as an indirect method in nuclear astrophysics, with particular reference to the results of a GANIL experiment with a cocktail beam around 23Al at 50 MeV/nucleon. Momentum distributions of the core fragments, inclusive and in coincidence with gamma rays detected with EXOGAM, were measured. From them we determine mixing ratios in the structure of the ground states of the projectile nuclei and the asymptotic normalization of their wave functions. The method has the advantage that can be used for beams of low quality, such as cocktail beams, and intensities as low as a few pps. The proton breakup reactions provide information to determine astrophysical (p,γ) reaction rates that are outside the reach of other direct or indirect methods, or complementary information to the use of transfer reactions (the ANC method) which require radioactive beams of much better purity and intensity. Preliminary results on proton breakup of 24Si, 23Al, 22Mg and 21Na will be presented. © Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- ShareAlikeLicence.