Non-Resonant Alpha-Induced Neutron-Emission: A Multi- Method Comparison Of Nuclear Reaction Rates

TL;DR

This paper compares different methods for calculating non-resonant alpha-induced neutron-emission reaction rates, crucial for stellar nucleosynthesis, by analyzing analytical, theoretical, and computational approaches including Monte Carlo simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive comparison of multiple methods, including validation of open-source Monte Carlo scripts and development of a new computational code for reaction rate calculations.

Findings

Reaction rates vary with temperature across methods

Monte Carlo and analytical methods show good agreement

Validated and benchmarked computational scripts for future use

Abstract

The precise calculation of alpha-induced neutron-emission ($\alpha$,n) reaction rates is fundamental to understanding nucleosynthesis in diverse stellar environments. This study investigates the nuclear reaction rates for various non-resonant alpha-induced neutron-emission reactions by employing analytical, theoretical, and computational methods. We have adopted analytical expressions from existing literature, and for the computational approach, we have implemented the Monte Carlo method. To better understand the functionality and validate the established open-source Monte Carlo scripts, we also developed our own computational code and used it to test various aspects of the method. A comprehensive comparison of the reaction rates from each method is presented by plotting their dependency on temperature.