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Published December 1990 | public
Journal Article

Radiative Capture Reactions in Nuclear Astrophysics

Abstract

Nuclear reactions in which the incident projectile is absorbed by the target nucleus and y radiation is then emitted are known as radiative capture reactions. As a class, they are important in many areas of pure and applied physics. Radiative capture reactions can help determine such nuclear features as the spectroscopic properties of nuclear states (1), the collective band structure and origin of enhanced multi pole decays (2), and the modes of nuclear motion (3, 4). Such spectroscopic properties in turn provide information on spectrum fluctuations in nuclei with high-level densities, which are of interest in chaos physics (5). The interaction of atomic and nU(;lear physics can be studied by the energy shift of a nuclear resonance due to K-shell ionization (6). Radiative capture reactions are also useful in measuring the depth profiles of nuclides in materials (7). Condensed matter effects on nuclear resonances can be studied via channeling features (8). The Lewis effect (9) appears to be sensitive to surface features. The capture y-ray flux emitted from the plasma fuel of a fusion reactor can be . used to measure the plasma temperature (10). Finally, the radiative capture reaction is one of the most important in the formation of various elements in the universe, and thus it is crucial for the field of nuclear astrophysics (11, 12). This article is concerned solely with radiative capture reactions of relatively light charged nuclides (for a discussion of radiative neutron, muon, and pion capture, see 13-15). References are made mainly to recent work with which the authors are familiar.

Additional Information

© 1990 by Annual Reviews Inc. The authors thank R. W. Kavanagh and G. E. Mitchell for fruitful comments on the manuscript.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
January 13, 2024