Photonuclear reactions in astrophysical p-process: Theoretical calculations and experiment simulation based on ELI-NP

¹ Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics, 077125 Magurele, Ilfov, Romania
² School of Nuclear Science and Technology, University of South China, 421001 Hengyang, China
³ Institut d'Astronomie et d'Astrophysique, CP. 226, Universite Libre de Bruxelles, 1050 Brussels, Belgium

^a e-mail: yi.xu@eli-np.ro

Published online: 13 September 2017

Abstract

The astrophysical p-process is an important way of nucleosynthesis to produce the stable and proton-rich nuclei beyond Fe which can not be reached by the s- and r-processes. In the present study, the astrophysical reaction rates of (γ,n), (γ,p), and (γ,α) reactions are computed within the modern reaction code TALYS for about 3000 stable and proton-rich nuclei with 12 < Z < 110. The nuclear structure ingredients involved in the calculation are determined from experimental data whenever available and, if not, from global microscopic nuclear models. In particular, both of the Wood-Saxon potential and the double folding potential with density dependent M3Y (DDM3Y) effective interaction are used for the calculations. It is found that the photonuclear reaction rates are very sensitive to the nuclear potential, and the better determination of nuclear potential would be important to reduce the uncertainties of reaction rates. Meanwhile, the Extreme Light Infrastructure-Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP) facility is being developed, which will provide the great opportunity to experimentally study the photonuclear reactions in p-process. Simulations of the experimental setup for the measurements of the photonuclear reactions ⁹⁶Ru(γ,p) and ⁹⁶Ru(γ,α) are performed. It is shown that the experiments of photonuclear reactions in p-process based on ELI-NP are quite promising.