Coulomb dissociation of 9Li and the rate of the 8Li(n,g)9Li reaction

TL;DR

This study calculates the Coulomb dissociation of 9Li to determine the astrophysical reaction rate of 8Li(n,g)9Li, providing a method free from certain nuclear uncertainties and relevant for stellar nucleosynthesis modeling.

Contribution

It introduces a novel calculation of Coulomb dissociation for 9Li using a finite range distorted wave Born approximation, improving reaction rate estimates for astrophysics.

Findings

Reaction rate at 10^9K is approximately 2900 cm^3 mole^{-1} s^{-1}.

Method avoids uncertainties from multipole strength distributions.

Provides data relevant for modeling stellar nucleosynthesis.

Abstract

We calculate the Coulomb dissociation of 9Li on Pb and U targets at 28.5 MeV/A beam energy within a finite range distorted wave Born approximation formalism of the breakup reactions. Invoking the principle of detailed balance, these cross sections are used to determine the excitation function and subsequently the rate of the radiative capture reaction 8Li(n,g)9Li at astrophysical energies. Our method is free from the uncertainties associated with the multipole strength distributions of the 9Li nucleus. The rate of this reaction at a temperature of 10^9K is found to be about 2900 cm^3 mole^{-1} s^{-1}.