Open AccessGlobal R-matrix analysis of the 11B(α,n)14N reaction
Author(s) -
R. J. deBoer,
Q. Liu,
Y. Chen,
M. Couder,
J. Görres,
E. Lamere,
Alexander Long,
Stephanie Lyons,
Khachatur V. Manukyan,
Luis Morales,
Daniel Robertson,
C. Seymour,
G. Seymour,
E. Stech,
B. Vande Kolk,
M. Wiescher
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of physics. conference series
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.21
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1742-6596
pISSN - 1742-6588
DOI - 10.1088/1742-6596/1668/1/012011
Subject(s) - physics , proton , excitation , neutron , matrix (chemical analysis) , nuclear reaction , r matrix , atomic physics , nuclear physics , chemistry , chromatography , quantum mechanics
Reactions that populate the 15 N system have implications for nucleosynthesis through the 11 B( α, n ) 14 N and 14 N( n, p ) 14 C reactions and the 14 N( n, p ) 14 C reaction is also a key component in modeling atmospheric 14 C production. A convenient characteristic of this system is that the α -particle, proton, and neutron separation energies are all within ≍1 MeV of one another. Further, it has been observed that 11 B+ α , 14 N+ n and 14 C+ p induced reactions all populate many of the same resonances near their reaction thresholds. This strongly facilitates the simultaneous analysis of data for all three of these entrance partitions using a global R-matrix analysis, which in turn provides a method of comparing the consistency among the different experimental measurements. In this work, a new measurement has been performed for the 11 B( α, n ) 14 N reaction, which gives a more accurate description of the cross section, in particular over an important interference region. This new data is combined with results from previous measurements, which populate a similar excitation energy range in the 15 N system, to produce a global fit that includes 11 B( α, n ) 14 N reaction data for the first time.