Indirect measurement of the (n,γ)¹²⁷Sb cross section

¹ Department of Physics, University of Oslo, N-0316 Oslo, Norway
² Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 U.S.A.

^* e-mail: francesco.pogliano@fys.uio.no
^** e-mail: a.c.larsen@fys.uio.no

Published online: 3 February 2023

Abstract

Sensitivity studies of the i process have identified the region around ¹³⁵I as a bottleneck for the neutron capture flow. Nuclear properties such as the Maxwellian-averaged cross section (MACS) are key to constrain the uncertainties in the final abundance patterns. From the ¹²⁴Sn(α, pγ)¹²⁷Sb reaction we are able to indirectly measure the nuclear level density and γ-ray strength function for ¹²⁷Sb using the Oslo method. From these two quantities we can calculate the MACS for the ¹²⁶Sb(n, γ)¹²⁷Sb reaction using the Hauser-Feshbach formalism, constrain its uncertainties and compare it to libraries such as JINA REACLIB, TENDL and BRUSLIB.