Thermodynamic nature of upbend resonance and validity of Brink-Axel hypothesis in the low-energy region

TL;DR

This study investigates the microscopic origin of the low-energy upbend resonance in radiative strength functions, revealing its thermodynamic nature, particle-particle excitations, and the invalidity of the Brink-Axel hypothesis at low gamma energies.

Contribution

It extends a thermal pairing plus phonon damping model to explain the UBR's microscopic origin across various nuclei and establishes a global relation between RSF strength and nuclear mass.

Findings

UBR originates from non-collective particle-particle and hole-hole excitations.

UBR appears only at finite temperatures, challenging the Brink-Axel hypothesis.

A new global relation between RSF strength and nuclear mass is reported.

Abstract

The nature of low-energy enhancement in the radiative strength function (RSF), which is known as the upbend resonance (UBR) and has a crucial role in the description of neutron-captured cross section and stellar nucleosynthesis, is still under debate. The present letter extends the exact thermal pairing plus phonon damping model to explore the microscopic nature of the UBR and its thermodynamic origin over a wide mass range of odd-odd, odd-A, and even-even systems, from $^{44}$Sc to $^{153}$Sm, whose experimental RSFs, including the UBRs, are available. The results of our calculations indicate that the UBR originates from non-collective particle-particle and hole-hole excitations with a strength three times stronger than that of the giant dipole resonance. Moreover, our results reveal that the UBR, which emerges only at finite temperatures within the present framework, invalidates the Brink-Axel hypothesis in the very low $E_\gamma$ region. Last but not least, a global relation between the integrated strength of the RSF in the UBR region to that of the total RSF and the mass number is reported, for the first time, within the present study.