The ¹⁵²Sm(p,n) reaction and its astrophysical importance

Within the nucleosynthetic processes of the slow neutron-capture reaction network (called the s process) the so called branching points, unstable isotopes where different nuclear reactions are competing, are important to understand. For modeling and calculating the nucleosynthesis and compare the resulting abundances to the observed ones, it is indispensable to know the branching ratios as well as the corresponding cross sections. A great challenge in measuring those rates in experiments may be the radioactivity of the isotopes involved, which can make it nearly impossible to manufacture the needed targets. In addition, in stellar environments the excited states of isotopes can be in equilibrium with the ground state, affecting the half-lives and the branching ratios significantly. The isotope ¹⁵²Eu is such a branching point, with neutron captures and β-decays competing. Those challenges were approached in the s405 experiment performed at the GSI Helmholtzzentrum fuer Schwerionenforschung GmbH: the challenge the challenge of the radioactivity can be approached by experiments carried out in inverse kinematics with radioactive beams, solving the problem of unstable targets. Also a reversed reaction was used to access the excited states of the studied isotope. The performed ¹⁵²Sm(p,n)¹⁵²Eu is a pioneering attempt to use those methods on heavy ions. The (p,n) reaction was used as a substitute for electron capture, the focus lies on reactions with low-momentum transfers, resulting in the emission of low-energy neutrons. The new developed low-energy detector array LENA was put to test for the fist time in the s405 experiment.