Proton-inelastic scattering to constrain neutron-induced reactions*

Neutron-induced reactions play an important role in stellar nucleosynthesis and thus are critical to our understanding of the formation of neutron-rich nuclei heavier than iron. However, the experimental measurements of the reaction cross sections needed for such nuclear astrophysics simulations are difficult - especially when the nuclei of interest are unstable. Surrogate reaction method has been demonstrated to work for obtaining such cross sections using experimental data from indirect measurements [1,2].

In this work we use proton inelastic scattering as a surrogate reaction mechanism for neutron-capture cross sections. We implement the Jeukenne, Lejeune, Mahaux (JLM) semi-microscopic folding approach [3] to describe population of states during compound nucleus formation using its microscopic structure - obtained from Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov and quasi-particle random phase approximation methods with Gogny-D1M potential [4,5]. The progress made in applying these developments to improve decay modeling using Hauser-Feschbach formalism will be presented for Zr isotopes.

References

1. J. E. Escher, J. T. Burke, R. O. Hughes, N. D. Scielzo, R. J. Casperson, S. Ota, H. I. Park, A. Saastamoinen, and T. J. Ross, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 052501 (2018)

2. A. Ratkiewicz, J.A. Cizewski, J.E. Escher, G. Potel, J.T. Harke, R.J. Casper- son, M. McCleskey, R.A.E. Austin, S. Burcher, R.O. Hughes, B. Manning, S.D. Pain, W.A. Peters, S. Rice, T.J. Ross, N.D. Scielzo, C. Shand, and K. Smith, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 052502 (2019)

3. A. Thapa, J. E. Escher, E. Chimanski, M. Dupuis, S. P ́eru, and W.Younes, EPJ Web of Conferences 292, 06003 (2024)

4. J. Berger, M. Girod, and D. Gogny, Comput. Phys. Commun. 63, 365 (1990)

5. E. Chimanski, E. In, J. Escher, S. P ́eru, W. Younes, J. Phys.: Conf. Ser. 2340 012033 (2022).