First results of the140ce(N,¿)141ce cross-section measurement at n_tof

An accurate measurement of the 140Ce(n,¿) energy-dependent cross-section was performed at the n_TOF facility at CERN. This cross-section is of great importance because it represents a bottleneck for the s-process nucleosynthesis and determines to a large extent the cerium abundance in stars. The measurement was motivated by the significant difference between the cerium abundance measured in globular clusters and the value predicted by theoretical stellar models. This discrepancy can be ascribed to an overestimation of the 140Ce capture cross-section due to a lack of accurate nuclear data. For this measurement, we used a sample of cerium oxide enriched in 140Ce to 99.4%. The experimental apparatus consisted of four deuterated benzene liquid scintillator detectors, which allowed us to overcome the difficulties present in the previous measurements, thanks to their very low neutron sensitivity. The accurate analysis of the p-wave resonances and the calculation of their average parameters are fundamental to improve the evaluation of the 140Ce Maxwellian-averaged cross-section.
Peer Reviewed
Article signat per 130 autors/es: Simone Amaducci, Nicola Colonna, Luigi Cosentino, Sergio Cristallo, Paolo Finocchiaro, Milan Krtiˇcka, Cristian Massimi, Mario Mastromarco, Annamaria Mazzone, Alberto Mengoni, Stanislav Valenta, Oliver Aberle, Victor Alcayne, Józef Andrzejewski, Laurent Audouin, Victor Babiano-Suarez, Michael Bacak, Massimo Barbagallo, Samuel Bennett, Eric Berthoumieux, Jon Billowes, Damir Bosnar, Adam Brown, Maurizio Busso, Manuel Caamaño, Luis Caballero-Ontanaya, Francisco Calviño, Marco Calviani, Daniel Cano-Ott, Adria Casanovas, Francesco Cerutti, Enrico Chiaveri, Guillem Cortés, Miguel Cortés-Giraldo, Lucia-Anna Damone, Paul-John Davies, Maria Diakaki, Mirco Dietz, Cesar Domingo-Pardo, Rugard Dressler, Quentin Ducasse, Emmeric Dupont, Ignacio Durán, Zinovia Eleme, Beatriz Fernández-Domínguez, Alfredo Ferrari, Valter Furman, Kathrin Göbel, Ruchi Garg, Aleksandra Gawlik, Simone Gilardoni, Isabel Gonçalves, Enrique González-Romero, Carlos Guerrero, Frank Gunsing, Hideo Harada, Stephan Heinitz, Jan Heyse, David Jenkins, Arnd Junghans, Franz Käppeler, Yacine Kadi, Atsushi Kimura, Ingrid Knapova, Michael Kokkoris, Yuri Kopatch, Deniz Kurtulgil, Ion Ladarescu, Claudia Lederer-Woods, Helmut Leeb, Jorge Lerendegui-Marco, Sarah-Jane Lonsdale, Daniela Macina, Alice Manna, Trinitario Martínez, Alessandro Masi, Pierfrancesco Mastinu, Emilio-Andrea Maugeri, Emilio Mendoza, Veatriki Michalopoulou, Paolo Milazzo, Federica Mingrone, Javier Moreno-Soto, Agatino Musumarra, Alexandru Negret, Francisco Ogállar, Andreea Oprea, Nikolas Patronis, Andreas Pavlik, Jarosław Perkowski, Luciano Piersanti, Cristina Petrone, Elisa Pirovano, Ignacio Porras, Javier Praena, José-Manuel Quesada, Diego Ramos-Doval, Thomas Rauscher, René Reifarth, Dimitri Rochman, Carlo Rubbia, Marta Sabaté-Gilarte, Alok Saxena, Peter Schillebeeckx, Dorothea Schumann, Adhitya Sekhar, Gavin Smith, Nikolay Sosnin, Peter Sprung, Athanasios Stamatopoulos, Giuseppe Tagliente, José Tain, Ariel Tarifeño
Postprint (author's final draft)