Eur. Phys. J. A (2006) 27: 217-220
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-08-033-6

Nuclear Physics in Astrophysics II

Can the neutron-capture cross sections be measured with Coulomb dissociation?

¹ Department of Atomic Physics, Eötvös Loránd University, 1117 Budapest Pázmány Péter sétány 1/A, Hungary
² Department of Physics, Rikkyo University, 3 Nishi-Ikebukuro, 171, Tokyo, Japan
³ National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University, 48824, East Lansing, MI, USA
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, 48824, MI, USA
⁵ Department of Physics, University of Arizona, 1118E 4th Street, 85721, Tucson, AZ, USA
⁶ Department of Physics, University of Washington, 98195, Seattle, WA, USA
⁷ Instituto de Fısica, Universidade de S ao Paulo, Caixa Postal 66318, 05315-970, S ao Paulo, Brazil
⁸ Department of Physics and Engineering, Hope College, 49423-9000, Holland, MI, USA
⁹ ATOMKI Institute of Nuclear Research, P.O.B. 51, H-4001, Debrecen, Hungary
¹⁰ Department of Physics, Florida State University, 32306, Tallahassee, FL, USA
¹¹ Centro Federal de Educaç ao Tecnológica do Paraná, Avenue Sete de Setembro 3165, 80 230-901, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
¹² KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics, P.O.B. 49, 114, Budapest, Hungary

Received: 25 August 2005
Accepted: 20 December 2005
Published online: 28 March 2006

Abstract

In this paper we present first results from a ⁸Li electromagnetic neutron-breakup experiment. Specific reactions studied were Pb( ⁸Li, ⁷Li+n) Pb and C( ⁸Li, ⁷Li+n) C at 41MeV/nucleon beam energy. This is an effort to compare the results of a Coulomb dissociation experiment with the well determined (n,γ) reaction cross sections at astrophysical energies. The angular dependence of the cross section above 7 degree, which is the grazing angle of ⁸Li- Pb system, is similar in shape for lead and carbon and approximately proportional to A ^2/3 in magnitude indicating that the nuclear dissociation is the main component in this region. At very forward angles the angular distributions differ significantly and the electromagnetic dissociation dominates for the lead, although the nuclear contribution is not negligible.