Study of 60Fe(n,γ)61Fe reaction of astrophysical interest via d(60Fe,pγ) indirect reaction

INTEGRAL and RHESSI spacecrafts recently detected the 1.173 and 1.333 MeV γ-ray lines coming from the 60Fe-60Co-60Ni radioactive decay chain. The long lived isotope 60Fe (T1/2 = 1.5 106y) is believed to be primarily produced in core-collapse supernovae. However the interpretation of the observations is difficult because of the large uncertainties concerning 59Fe(n,γ)60Fe and 60Fe(n,γ)61Fe cross sections, involved in 60Fe nucleosynthesis.The direct component of the 60Fe(n,γ)61Fe reaction was studied indirectly via the d(60Fe,pγ)61Fe transfer reaction. The experiment performed in GANIL in spring 2009 will allow to determine the excitation energies of the populated excited states of 61Fe and for the first time their spectroscopic factors as well as their transfer angular momentum.I will first give an overview of the astrophysical context, then I will describe the experimental setup and finally present some preliminary results of the ongoing analysis.