Measurement of the $^{17}O(p,\gamma)^{18}F$ nuclear reaction cross section in the energy range $E_{lab}=360$ - $1625$ keV

The $^{17}O(p,\gamma)^{18}F$ reaction influences hydrogen-burning nucleosynthesis in several stellar sites, such as red giants, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, massive stars and classical novae. In the relevant temperature range for these environments ($T_{9}=0.01$-$0.4$), the main contributions to the rate of this reaction are the direct capture process, two low lying narrow resonances ($E_{R}^{lab}=70$ and $193$ keV) and the low energy tails of two broad resonances ($E_{R}^{lab}=587$ and $714$ keV). Previous measurements and calculations give contradictory results for the direct capture contribution which in turn increases the uncertainty of the reaction rate. In addition, very few published cross section data exist for the high energy region that might affect the interpretation of the direct capture and the broad resonances contributions in the lower energy range. In this work we present a measurement of the reaction at a wide proton energy range ($E_{lab}=360$ - $1625$ keV) and at several angles ($\theta_{lab}=0^{\circ},45^{\circ},90^{\circ},135^{\circ}$). All detected primary transitions and all angles were fitted simultaneously and extrapolated to lower energies using the multi-level, multi-channel R-matrix code, \emph{AZURE}.