Calculation of The Abundance of $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os Nuclear Clock Nuclides in S-process and Sensitivity Analysis of Maxwellian-Averaged Neutron Capture Cross Sections

TL;DR

This paper models the abundance of $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os nuclides in the s-process and analyzes how neutron capture cross sections influence the nuclear clock, highlighting reactions with the greatest impact for experimental focus.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analytical and numerical approach to calculate nuclide abundances and sensitivity analysis of neutron capture cross sections in the s-process for the nuclear clock.

Findings

The reaction $^{184}$W + n has the greatest influence on the nuclear clock network.

The reaction $^{186}$W + n significantly affects $^{187}$Re and $^{187}$Os abundances.

Sensitivity analysis identifies key reactions for experimental measurement.

Abstract

In this paper, the network equations calculation of $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os clock-related nuclide abundance in s-process is studied, and the sensitivities of Maxwellian-Averaged neutron capture cross sections for each nuclide are analyzed in detail. Firstly, basing nuclear physical parameters, we give the branching s-process reaction network from $^{184}$W to $^{190}$Os, and establish the corresponding network equations. Using a single path s-process approximation, we obtain an analytical expression of the seed nuclide $^{183}$W abundance of our branching network. Because of the stiffness of the system of network equations, we use the semi-implicit Runge-Kutta method to give the numerical solution of the network equations, and thus obtain the abundance of each nuclide related to the $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os nuclear clock in the s-process. Finally, with the numerical solution, the sensitivity analysis of the Maxwellian-Averaged neutron capture cross sections of the nuclear reaction involved in the $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os nuclear clock network equations is carried out. Therefore, we find that in s-process, the neutron capture reaction $^{184}$W + n $\to$ $^{185}$W has the greatest influence on the $^{187}$Re-$^{187}$Os nuclear clock reaction network, and the neutron capture reaction $^{186}$W + n $\to$ $^{187}$W has the greatest effect on the particular nuclides $^{187}$Re and $^{187}$Os. So the measurements of these two Maxwellian-Averaged neutron capture cross sections deserve the attention of experimental nuclear physicists.