How well do we understand the reaction rate of C burning

Carbon burning plays a crucial role in stellar evolution, where this reaction is an important route for the production of heavier elements. A particle-γ coincidence technique that minimizes the backgrounds to which this reaction is subject and provides reliable cross sections has been used at the Argonne National Laboratory to measure fusion cross-sections at deep sub-barrier energies in the 12 C+ 12 C system. The corresponding excitation function has been extracted down to a cross section of about 6 nb. This indicates the existence of a broad S-factor maximum for this system. Experimental results are presented and discussed.