Session T7 - Nuclear Reactions: Light Ions and Nuclear Astrophysics.
ORAL session, Tuesday morning, April 08
Regency Ballroom C1, Loews Philadelphia Hotel
Neutron-induced reactions on radioactive nuclei play a significant role in nuclear astrophysics and many other applied nuclear physics topics. However, the majority of these cross sections are impossible to measure due to the high-background of the targets and the low-intensity of neutron beams. We have explored the possibility of using charged-particle transfer reactions to form the same “pre-compound” nucleus as one formed in a neutron-induced reaction in order to measure the relative decay probabilities of the nucleus as a function of energy. Multiplying these decay probabilities by the neutron absorption cross section will then produce the equivalent neutron-induced reaction cross section. In this presentation I will explore the validity of this “surrogate reaction” technique by comparing results from the recent 157Gd(3He,axng)156-xGd experiment using STARS (Silicon Telescope Array for Reaction Studies) at GAMMASPHERE with reaction model calculations for the 155Gd(n,xng)156-xGd. This work was funded by the US Department of Energy under contracts number W-7405-ENG-48 (LLNL), AC03-76SF00098 (LBNL) and the Norwegian Research Council (Oslo).