Reconciling Coulomb breakup and neutron radiative capture

Abstract

The Coulomb-breakup method to extract the cross section for neutron radiative capture at astrophysical energies is analyzed in detail. In particular, its sensitivity to the description of the neutron-core continuum is ascertained. We consider the case of 14C(n, $\gamma$)15C for which both the radiative capture at low energy and the Coulomb breakup of 15C into 14C+n on Pb at 68 MeV/nucleon have been measured with accuracy. We confirm the direct proportionality of the cross section for both reactions to the square of the asymptotic normalization constant of 15C observed by Summers and Nunes [Phys. Rev. C 78, 011601 (2008)], but we also show that the 14C-n continuum plays a significant role in the calculations. Fortunately, the method proposed by Summers and Nunes can be improved to absorb that continuum dependence. We show that a more precise radiative-capture cross section can be extracted selecting the breakup data at forward angles and low 14C-n relative energies.

Erratum added in the Appendix A

References in corpus (5)

• Electromagnetic strength of neutron and proton single-particle halo nuclei
• Effective-range approach and scaling laws for electromagnetic strength in neutron-halo nuclei
• Analysis of Coulomb breakup experiments of 8B with a dynamical eikonal approximation
• Peripherality of breakup reactions
• Reconciling Coulomb breakup and neutron radiative capture

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Dissecting reaction calculations using Halo EFT and ab initio input
• ${}^{15}$C: from Halo-EFT structure to the study of transfer, breakup and radiative-capture reactions
• Prediction of (p,n) Charge-Exchange Reactions with Uncertainty Quantification
• Reconciling Coulomb breakup and neutron radiative capture
• Sensitivity of one-neutron knockout to the nuclear structure of halo nuclei