Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey 08901, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2019 Feb 8;122(5):052502. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.052502.
The neutron-capture reaction plays a critical role in the synthesis of the elements in stars and is important for societal applications including nuclear power generation and stockpile-stewardship science. However, it is difficult-if not impossible-to directly measure neutron capture cross sections for the exotic, short-lived nuclei that participate in these processes. In this Letter we demonstrate a new technique which can be used to indirectly determine neutron-capture cross sections for exotic systems. This technique makes use of the (d,p) transfer reaction, which has long been used as a tool to study the structure of nuclei. Recent advances in reaction theory, together with data collected using this reaction, enable the determination of neutron-capture cross sections for short-lived nuclei. A benchmark study of the ^{95}Mo(d,p) reaction is presented, which illustrates the approach and provides guidance for future applications of the method with short-lived isotopes produced at rare isotope accelerators.
中子俘获反应在恒星中元素的合成中起着关键作用，对于包括核能发电和库存管理科学在内的社会应用也很重要。然而，对于参与这些过程的奇特的、寿命短的原子核，直接测量中子俘获截面是困难的（如果不是不可能的话）。在这封信中，我们展示了一种新的技术，可以用来间接确定奇异系统的中子俘获截面。该技术利用（d，p）转移反应，该反应长期以来一直被用作研究原子核结构的工具。反应理论的最新进展，以及使用该反应收集的数据，使得确定寿命短的原子核的中子俘获截面成为可能。介绍了对 ^{95}Mo（d，p）反应的基准研究，该研究说明了该方法，并为在稀有同位素加速器中产生的短寿命同位素的未来应用提供了指导。
