Eur. Phys. J. A (2007) 32: 357-369
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2006-10378-y

Review

Photo-induced nucleosynthesis: Current problems and experimental approaches

¹ Strahlentherapie, Diakoniekrankenhaus Schwäbisch Hall, D-74523, Schwäbisch Hall, Germany
² ATOMKI, P.O. Box 51, H-4001, Debrecen, Hungary
³ Department of Physics, Konan University, 8-9-1 Okamoto, 658-8501, Higashinada, Kobe, Japan

^* e-mail: WidmaierMohr@compuserve.de

Received: 22 November 2006
Accepted: 16 May 2007
Published online: 5 June 2007

Abstract

Photon-induced reactions play a key role in the nucleosynthesis of rare neutron-deficient p -nuclei. The paper focuses on , , and reactions which define the corresponding p -process path. The relation between stellar reaction rates and laboratory cross-sections is analyzed for photon-induced reactions and their inverse capture reactions to evaluate various experimental approaches. An improved version S _C(E) of the astrophysical S -factor is suggested which is based on the Coulomb wave functions. S _C(E) avoids the apparent energy dependence which is otherwise obtained for capture reactions on heavy nuclei. It is found that a special type of synchrotron radiation available at SPring-8 that mimics stellar blackbody radiation at billions of kelvins is a promising tool for future experiments. By using the blackbody synchrotron radiation, sufficient event rates for and reactions in the p -process path can be expected. These experiments will provide data to improve the nuclear parameters involved in the statistical model and thus reduce the uncertainties of nucleosynthesis calculations.