Re-evaluation of the 16O(n,γ)17O cross section at astrophysical energies and its role as neutron poison in the s process

Mohr, Péter and Heinz, C. and Pignatari, Marco and Dillmann, I. and Mengoni, A. (2016) Re-evaluation of the 16O(n,γ)17O cross section at astrophysical energies and its role as neutron poison in the s process. ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL, 827 (1). ISSN 1538-4357

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Abstract

The doubly magic nucleus 16O has a small neutron-capture cross section of just a few tens of microbarns in the astrophysical energy region. Despite this, 16O plays an important role as a neutron poison in the astrophysical slow neutron capture (s) process due to its high abundance. We present in this paper a re-evaluation of the available experimental data for 16O(n, γ)17O and derive a new recommendation for the Maxwellian-averaged cross sections between kT = 5 and 100 keV. Our new recommendations are lower up to kT = 60 keV compared to the previously recommended values but up to 14% higher at kT = 100 keV. We explore the impact of this different energy dependence on the weak s-process during core helium burning (kT = 26 keV) and shell carbon burning (kT = 90 keV) in massive stars where 16O is the most abundant isotope.

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