Cross-Section Measurements for Charged Particle Fusion Reactors: The ⁶Li(³He, p) 2α Reaction

Many reactions involving ⁶Li are of interest in studies of the performance of charged particle fusion reactor systems. We report measurements of the absolute cross sections for the ⁶Li(³He, p)⁸Be reaction from 3 to 6 Me V and include the first estimates of the absolute magnitude of the three-body continuum cross section ⁶Li(³He, p)2α. The cross sections below 1 MeV are calculated from an s-wave Gamow extrapolation and are used to extract the Maxwell-averaged reaction rate for the ⁶Li(³He, p)⁸Be reaction leading to the ground and first excited states of ⁸Be.