Gamow Energy, Peak, Width and Window? I am trying to wrap my head around Gamow energy and it’s various terms.
To put it simply I understand higher Gamow energy reduces the chance of penetration relating to the Coulomb barrier.
For the width/window would it be fair to say that a higher value indicates a bigger window so therefore more chance of fusion occurring?
To be clear i am not asking for equations or help with any specific problem sets in nuclear fusion but I hoped some more knowledgeable people than myself could guide me on some simple understanding of the process.
I hope that makes sense?
Thank you in advance.
The likelihood of a reaction occuring at a given energy is a product of the number of particles with that energy (the Maxwell Boltzmann distribution), which decreases with energy, and the tunneling probability, which increases with energy. This product forms the Gamow window.
The total reaction rate (for a non-resonant reaction) is proportional to the area under the Gamow window - i.e. the product of its width and height.
For resonant reactions, that occur over a narrow energy range, all that really matters is how close to the peak of the Gamow window that energy is.