Abstract
A major barrier in the study of neutron-induced nuclear reactions is the impossibility of direct measurements with short-lived radioactive isotopes. For these exotic nuclei, theoretical inputs such as the photon strength function (PSF) are poorly constrained.
At Los At Los National Laboratory, the Detector for Advanced Neutron Capture Experiments (DANCE) provides direct measurements of gamma-ray cascades following neutron capture reactions on stable or long-lived radioactive nuclei. While Hauser-Feshbach calculations can provide reasonable predictions for neutron capture on heavy nuclei, their application to neutron-rich light nuclei with low nuclear level densities and low neutron separation energies is questionable.
In this paper, we report on the gamma-ray spectra from individual neutron resonances from the Zr-96(n, gamma) reaction, with an emphasis on the sensitivity of of the gamma-ray spectra to different PSF models. The comparison of the measured gamma-ray spectra with predicted spectra does not support the addition of a low-energy enhancement of the size reported in many charged-particle reaction measurements, but the sensitivity of the gamma-ray spectra to different PSF models is weak.