Photodisintegration studies on p-nuclei: the case of Mo and sm isotopes

Abstract

In explosive stellar environments like supernovae, the temperatures are high enough for the production of heavy neutron-deficient nuclei, the so-called p-nuclei. Up to now, the knowledge of the reaction rates of p-nuclei is based on theoretical parameterizations using statistical model calculations. At the bremsstrahlung facility of the superconducting electron accelerator ELBE of FZ Dresden–Rossendorf, we aim to measure the photodisintegration rates of heavy nuclei experimentally. Photoactivation measurements on the astrophysically relevant p-nuclei 92Mo and 144Sm have been performed with bremsstrahlung end-point energies from 10.0 to 16.5 MeV. First experiments on the short-lived decays following the reaction 144Sm(γ,n) are carried out using a pneumatic delivery system for rapid transport of activated samples. The activation yields are compared with calculations using cross sections from recent Hauser–Feshbach models.