Measurement and Analysis of the 17F(p,p') Reaction

X-ray bursts are one of the most frequent transient events observed in the universe. They repeat irregularly with periods from a few hours to months and lead to the synthesis of numerous heavy elements in the rp-process. This process is poorly understood due to the numerous reactions on exotic nuclei. The rp-process is thought to be triggered by the 14O(α,p)17F reaction, and understanding the rate of this reaction will aid in interpreting x-ray burst light curves. Because of the difficulty of studying the forward reaction, recent attempts have been made to study the time reversed reaction, 17F(p,α)14O. Since these studies only probe astrophysical branches to the ground state of 17F, the 17F(p,p') reaction was studied at the Nuclear Science Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame to look for the population of excited states. The data will be presented and preliminary results discussed.