Decay study of20Na and its beta-delayed16O recoiling

The decay of20Na of astrophysical reactions has been studied deeply via20Ne(p, n)20Na reaction. A new β-delayed α decay with α energy of 5 896 ± 6 keV and relative intensity of 0.002 4 ± 0. 000 3 was discovered. At the same time the16O recoiling in β+-delayed α decay of20Na was observed in experiment for the first time. From these, it is inferred that a β-delayed low energy α decay of20Na with energy of ∼780 keV and relative intensity of ∼1.4 was mixed in16O recoiling. In16O recoiling and the low energy α decay, the energy loss for low energy charged particles through matter was discussed in detail. At last, two methods for discriminating the β-delayed low energy α decay of20Na were proposed.