Reevaluation of thermonuclear reaction rate of 50Fe(p,gamma)51Co

TL;DR

This paper reevaluates the thermonuclear reaction rate of 50Fe(p,gamma)51Co using recent precise mass measurements, nuclear shell model calculations, and mirror nuclear structure, highlighting the limitations of statistical models for this reaction.

Contribution

It provides a new reaction rate for 50Fe(p,gamma)51Co based on experimental data and nuclear structure, improving previous theoretical estimates.

Findings

Experimental proton separation energy with reduced uncertainty.

Statistical-model calculations are less suitable due to low excited state density.

Proposes using mirror structure of 51Cr for future reaction rate calculations.

Abstract

The thermonuclear rate of the 50Fe(p,gamma)51Co reaction in the Type I X-ray bursts (XRBs) temperature range has been reevaluated based on a recent precise mass measurement at CSRe lanzhou, where the proton separation energy Sp=142+/-77 keV has been determined firstly for the 51Co nucleus. Comparing to the previous theoretical predictions, the experimental Sp value has much smaller uncertainty. Based on the nuclear shell model and mirror nuclear structure information, we have calculated two sets of thermonuclear rates for the 50Fe(p,gamma)51Co reaction by utilizing the experimental Sp value. It shows that the statistical-model calculations are not ideally applicable for this reaction primarily because of the low density of low-lying excited states in 51Co. In this work, we recommend that a set of new reaction rate based on the mirror structure of 51Cr should be incorporated in the future astrophysical network calculations.