https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12295-3
Review
Neutron-induced cross sections
From raw data to astrophysical rates
1
Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt, Germany
2
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, Darmstadt, Germany
3
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Karlsruhe, Germany
4
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
5
ENEA, Bologna, Italy
6
INFN, Sezione di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
7
Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany
8
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
* e-mail: reifarth@physik.uni-frankfurt.de
Received:
16
May
2018
Accepted:
2
September
2018
Published online:
18
October
2018
Neutron capture cross sections are one of the most important nuclear inputs to models of stellar nucleosynthesis of the elements heavier than iron. The activation technique and the time-of-flight method are mostly used to determine the required data experimentally. Recent developments of experimental techniques allow for new experiments on radioactive isotopes. Monte Carlo based analysis methods give new insights into the systematic uncertainties of previous measurements. We present an overview over the state-of-the-art experimental techniques, a detailed new evaluation of the 197Au(n,) cross section in the keV-regime and the corresponding re-evaluation of 63 more isotopes, which have been measured in the past relative to the gold cross section.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2018