Relevant energy ranges for astrophysical reaction rates

TL;DR

This paper calculates the effective energy windows for various astrophysical nuclear reactions and demonstrates that common approximation formulas are often inaccurate, providing detailed results and discussing the impact of width energy dependence.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive calculation of Gamow windows for many reactions and shows the limitations of traditional approximation formulas in astrophysical contexts.

Findings

Widely used formulas are invalid for many reactions.

Tabulated data of calculated energy windows are provided.

Discussion on the impact of width energy dependence.

Abstract

Effective energy windows (Gamow windows) of astrophysical reaction rates for (p,gamma), (p,n), (p,alpha), (alpha,gamma), (alpha,n), (alpha,p), (n,gamma), (n,p), and (n,alpha) on targets with 10<=Z<=83 from proton- to neutron-dripline are calculated using theoretical cross sections. It is shown that widely used approximation formulas for the relevant energy ranges are not valid for a large number of reactions relevant to hydrostatic and explosive nucleosynthesis. The influence of the energy dependence of the averaged widths on the location of the Gamow windows is discussed and the results presented in tabular form (also at http://download.nucastro.org/astro/gamow/).