The Fe(n,)Fe cross section from the surrogate ratio method and its effect on the Fe nucleosynthesis

Yan, S. Q.*; Li, X. Y.*; 西尾 勝久; Lugaro, M.*; Li, Z. H.*; 牧井 宏之; Pignatari, M.*; Wang, Y. B.*; Orlandi, R.; 廣瀬 健太郎; et al.

Astrophysical Journal, 919(2), p.84_1 - 84_7, 2021/10

https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac12ce

The long-lived Fe (with a half-life of 2.62 Myr) is a crucial diagnostic of active nucleosynthesis in the Milky Way galaxy and in supernovae near the solar system. The neutron-capture reaction Fe(n,)Fe on Fe (half-life=44.5 days) is the key reaction for the production of Fe in massive stars. This reaction cross section has been previously constrained by the Coulomb dissociation experiment, which offered partial constraint on the E1 -ray strength function but a negligible constraint on the M1 and E2 components. In this work, for the first time, we use the surrogate ratio method to experimentally determine the Fe(n,)Fe cross sections in which all the components are included. We derived a Maxwellian-averaged cross section of 27.53.5 mb at = 30 keV and 13.41.7 mb at = 90 keV, roughly 10%-20% higher than previous estimates. We analyzed the impact of our new reaction rates in nucleosynthesis models of massive stars and found that uncertainties in the production of Fe from the Fe(n,)Fe rate are at most 25. We conclude that stellar physics uncertainties now play a major role in the accurate evaluation of the stellar production of Fe.