New pathways to bypass the 15O waiting point

Two reactions 15O(p,β+)16O and 15O(p,γ)(β+)16O are proposed as new pathways to bypass the 15O waiting point in astrophysical context. The later reaction is found to have a surprisingly high cross section, approximately 1010 times higher than the first reaction. These cross sections were calculated after precise measurements of energies and widths of the proton‐unbound 16F low lying states, obtained using the H(15O,p)15O reaction. The large (p,γ)(β+) cross section can be understood to arise from the more efficient feeding of the low energy wing of the ground state resonance by the gamma decay. The implications of the new reactions are discussed.