Fusion reactions play an essential role in understanding the light production, the nucleosynthesis of chemical elements and the evolution of massive stars. Thus, the direct measurement of key fusion reactions at thermonuclear energies is of very high interest. Among these reactions, the 12C+12C reaction plays an essential role in the carbon burning and has a major influence on the life cycle of massive stars. From a structure point of view, this reaction is known to show prominent resonances at energies ranging from a few MeV/nucleon down to the sub-Coulomb regime, possibly due to molecular 12C-12C configurations in 24Mg. The persistence of such resonances down to the Gamow energy is still an open question. Moreover, this reaction could be subject to the fusion hindrance phenomenon which has been evidenced for numerous systems. In this seminar, I will present recent 12C+12C fusion measurements down to the Gamow energy window using the γ-particle coincidence technique within the STELLA project [1]. 

[1] M. Heine et al., Null. Instr. and Meth. in Phys. Res., A 903 (2018) 1.