Constraining experimentally photon strength functions using real photons at the HIγS/TUNL facility

Department of Physics and Astronomy, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA 22807, USA

^* Corresponding author: banula@jmu.edu

Published online: 14 March 2025

Abstract

This contribution brings into focus two distinct sets of experiments carried out using real photons at the HIγS/TUNL facility - ^78,80Kr(γ,γ’), ⁹⁴Mo(γ,n) and ⁹⁰Zr(γ,n) cross section measurements. These measurements are relevant for constraining dipole photon strength function models used in large-scale calculations of stellar photonuclear reaction rates relevant for p-process nucleosynthesis. We report on the status of the very recent NRF measurements on ^78,80Kr, which will provide for the first time model- independent information on the low-energy part of the corresponding electric dipole photon strength functions, and discuss, with respect to our recently published photoneutron cross section measurements on ⁹⁴Mo and ⁹⁰Zr, the fact that measured neutrons that are correlated with excited states in the residual nucleus must be appropriately accounted for when determining the detection efficiency needed to extract the laboratory photoneutron cross sections.