REACTION RATE SENSITIVITY OF ⁴⁴Ti PRODUCTION IN MASSIVE STARS AND IMPLICATIONS OF A THICK TARGET YIELD MEASUREMENT OF ⁴⁰Ca(α, γ)⁴⁴Ti

We evaluate two dominant nuclear reaction rates and their uncertainties that affect 44 Ti production in explosive nucleosynthesis. Experimentally we develop thick target yields for the 40 Ca(α, γ) 44 Ti reaction at E α = 4.13, 4.54, and 5.36 MeV using γ-ray spectroscopy. At the highest beam energy, we also performed an activation measurement which agrees with the thick target result. From the measured yields a stellar reaction rate was developed that is smaller than current statistical-model calculations and recent experimental results, which would suggest lower 44 Ti production in scenarios for the α-rich freezeout. Special attention has been paid to assessing realistic uncertainties of stellar reaction rates produced from a combination of experimental and theoretical cross sections. With such methods, we also develop a re-evaluation of the 44 Ti(α, p ) 47 V reaction rate. Using these two rates we carry out a sensitivity survey of 44 Ti synthesis in eight expansions representing peak temperature and density conditions drawn from a suite of recent supernova explosion models. Our results suggest that the current uncertainty in these two reaction rates could lead to as large an uncertainty in 44 Ti synthesis as that produced by different treatments of stellar physics.