Systematic study of macroscopic interaction models and short-range effects in 12C+12C fusion
Abstract
The 12C+12C fusion reaction is central to stellar carbon burning, yet its cross section at astrophysical energies remains uncertain and theoretical extrapolations depend sensitively on the adopted nucleus-nucleus interaction. We systematically assess 24 macroscopic interactions within a common one-dimensional fusion framework and find that their relative agreement with experimental data depends strongly on both the statistical measure and energy interval considered, with no single interaction providing a uniformly superior description across all criteria. A common phenomenological short-range repulsive modification is then applied to all interactions without refitting their underlying parametrizations. Although the external fusion barrier remains essentially unchanged, the modification substantially reorganizes the inner-potential structure and produces strongly model-dependent changes in agreement with experiment. Detailed analysis of five representative interactions shows that the resulting low-energy suppression propagates into the thermonuclear reaction rates, but does not produce the conventional logarithmic-slope signature of fusion hindrance over the calculated energy range. These results demonstrate that additional short-range repulsion does not provide a universal improvement of macroscopic fusion potentials and that the reliability of extrapolations toward stellar carbon-burning energies remains sensitive to both the choice of interaction and its short-range behavior.
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BibTeX
@misc{aziz2026systematic,
title = {{Systematic study of macroscopic interaction models and short-range effects in $^12\mathrmC+^12\mathrmC$ fusion}},
author = {Azni Abdul Aziz and Norhasliza Yusof},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.25996},
eprint = {2609.25996},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25996},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Systematic study of macroscopic interaction models and short-range effects in ^12C+^12C fusion
AU - Azni Abdul Aziz
AU - Norhasliza Yusof
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.25996
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25996
AB - The ^12C+^12C fusion reaction is central to stellar carbon burning, yet its cross section at astrophysical energies remains uncertain and theoretical extrapolations depend sensitively on the adopted nucleus-nucleus interaction. We systematically assess 24 macroscopic interactions within a common one-dimensional fusion framework and find that their relative agreement with experimental data depends strongly on both the statistical measure and energy interval considered, with no single interaction providing a uniformly superior description across all criteria. A common phenomenological short-range repulsive modification is then applied to all interactions without refitting their underlying parametrizations. Although the external fusion barrier remains essentially unchanged, the modification substantially reorganizes the inner-potential structure and produces strongly model-dependent changes in agreement with experiment. Detailed analysis of five representative interactions shows that the resulting low-energy suppression propagates into the thermonuclear reaction rates, but does not produce the conventional logarithmic-slope signature of fusion hindrance over the calculated energy range. These results demonstrate that additional short-range repulsion does not provide a universal improvement of macroscopic fusion potentials and that the reliability of extrapolations toward stellar carbon-burning energies remains sensitive to both the choice of interaction and its short-range behavior.
ER -