Review and new concepts for neutron-capture measurements of astrophysical interest

TL;DR

This paper reviews historical progress and introduces new detection concepts, like i-TED, to improve neutron-capture measurements crucial for understanding stellar nucleosynthesis.

Contribution

It presents a historical overview of neutron-capture measurement techniques and introduces innovative detection methods such as i-TED for enhanced sensitivity.

Findings

Advances in detector technology have refined s-process nucleosynthesis models.

Development of i-TED improves measurement sensitivity and selectivity.

Historical review highlights progress in nuclear astrophysics measurements.

Abstract

The idea of slow-neutron capture nucleosynthesis formulated in 1957 triggered a tremendous experimental effort in different laboratories worldwide to measure the relevant nuclear physics input quantities, namely ($n,\gamma$) cross sections over the stellar temperature range (from few eV up to several hundred keV) for most of the isotopes involved from Fe up to Bi. A brief historical review focused on total energy detectors will be presented to illustrate how, advances in instrumentation have led, over the years, to the assessment and discovery of many new aspects of $s$-process nucleosynthesis and to the progressive refinement of theoretical models of stellar evolution. A summary will be presented on current efforts to develop new detection concepts, such as the Total-Energy Detector with $\gamma$-ray imaging capability (i-TED). The latter is based on the simultaneous combination of Compton imaging with neutron time-of-flight (TOF) techniques, in order to achieve a superior level of sensitivity and selectivity in the measurement of stellar neutron capture rates.