Indirect measurements of neutron-induced reaction cross sections at heavy-ion storage rings

¹ LP2I Bordeaux, CNRS/IN2P3-Université de Bordeaux, 33170 Gradignan, France
² Max-Planck Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
³ GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
⁴ Goethe University of Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany
⁵ Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, IJCLab, 91405 Orsay, France
⁶ TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 2A3, Canada
⁷ IFIC, CSIC-Universidad de Valencia, 46980 Valencia, Spain
⁸ CEA, DAM, DIF, 91297 Arpajon, France
⁹ Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, Laboratoire Matière sous Conditions Extrêmes, 91680 Bruyères-Le-Châtel, France
¹⁰ Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
¹¹ Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Gothenburg, Sweden
¹² GANIL, 14000 Caen, France
¹³ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, UK
¹⁴ CEA-Paris Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France

^* Corresponding author: jurado@cenbg.in2p3.fr

Published online: 26 May 2023

Abstract

Neutron-induced reaction cross sections of unstable nuclei are essential for understanding the synthesis of heavy elements in stars and for applications in nuclear technology. However, their measurement is very complicated due to the radioactivity of the targets involved. We propose to circumvent this problem by using the surrogate reaction method in inverse kinematics, where the nucleus formed in the neutron- induced reaction of interest is produced by a reaction involving a radioactive heavy-ion beam and a stable, light target nucleus. The probabilities as a function of the compound-nucleus excitation energy for γ-ray emission, neutron emission and fission, which can be measured with the surrogate reaction, are particularly useful to constrain model parameters and to obtain more accurate predictions of the neutron-induced reaction cross sections of interest. Yet, the full development of the surrogate method is hampered by numerous long- standing target issues, which can be solved by combining surrogate reactions with the unique and largely unexplored possibilities at heavy-ion storage rings. In this contribution, we describe the developments we are carrying out to measure for the first time simultaneously γ-ray emission, neutron emission and fission probabilities at the storage rings of the GSI/FAIR facility. In particular, we will present the first results of the proof of principle experiment, which we performed in June 2022 at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of GSI/FAIR.