Determining astrophysical three-body radiative capture reaction rates from inclusive Coulomb break-up measurements

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method linking Coulomb break-up probabilities to astrophysical three-body radiative capture rates, enabling easier estimation from inclusive measurements and providing a benchmark for theoretical models.

Contribution

It establishes a direct relationship between inclusive Coulomb break-up measurements and radiative capture reaction rates for three-body systems, offering a practical alternative to traditional methods.

Findings

Applied method to $^{11}$Li and $^{6}$He systems with existing data.

Provides a robust way to estimate astrophysical reaction rates.

Offers a means to validate theoretical calculations.

Abstract

A relationship between the Coulomb inclusive break-up probability and the radiative capture reaction rate for weakly-bound three-body systems is established. This direct link provides a robust procedure to estimate the reaction rate for nuclei of astrophysical interest by measuring inclusive break-up processes at different energies and angles. This might be an advantageous alternative to the determination of reaction rates from the measurement of $B(E1)$ distributions through exclusive Coulomb break-up experiments. In addition, it provides a reference to assess the validity of different theoretical approaches that have been used to calculate reaction rates. The procedure is applied to $^{11}$Li ($^{9}$Li+n+n) and $^6$He ($^{4}$He+n+n) three-body systems for which some data exist.