Pygmy resonances and radiative nucleon captures for stellar nucleosynthesis

Abstract

The impact of low-energy multipole excitations and pygmy resonances on radiative neutron and proton-capture cross sections in nuclei close to the β-stability line is investigated. For this purpose, a microscopic theoretical approach based on self-consistent density functional theory and quasiparticle-random-phase-approximation formalism extended with multiphonon degrees of freedom is implemented in a statistical reaction model. The advantage of the method is the microscopic nuclear structure input for unified description of low-energy multiphonon excitations and pygmy and giant resonances. This is found to be important for the understanding of the fine structure and dynamics of the nuclear response function at low energies, which strongly influences nuclear reaction rates of astrophysical relevance. Calculations of the radiative capture cross sections of the reactions Kr85(n,γ)Kr86, Sr87(n,γ)Sr88, and Y89(p,γ)Zr90 are discussed in comparison with experimental data. For the reactions Zr89(n,γ)Zr90 and Mo91(n,γ)Mo92 theoretical predictions of the reaction cross sections are made.