Neutron-induced nucleosynthesis

Abstract

Neutron--induced nucleosynthesis plays an important role in astrophysical scenarios like in primordial nucleosynthesis in the early universe, in the s--process occurring in Red Giants, and in the $\alpha$--rich freeze--out and r--process taking place in supernovae of type II. A review of the three important aspects of neutron--induced nucleosynthesis is given: astrophysical background, experimental methods and theoretical models for determining reaction cross sections and reaction rates at thermonuclear energies. Three specific examples of neutron capture at thermal and thermonuclear energies are discussed in some detail.

40 pages (uses kluwer.sty), 2 postscript figures (uses psfig), accepted for publication in Surveys in Geophysics, uuencoded tex-files and postscript-files available at ftp://is1.kph.tuwien.ac.at/pub/ohu/Geo.uu

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Nuclear Level Density and the Determination of Thermonuclear Rates for Astrophysics
• Constraints on the Variation of the Fine Structure Constant from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Dependence of direct neutron capture on nuclear-structure models
• Cross section predictions for hydrostatic and explosive burning
• Potential model with bound-to-continuum approach for low-energy nucleon radiative capture by ${}^{12}$C and ${}^{16}$O