Abstract
Background: The -nucleus optical potential plays a crucial role in the calculation of -induced reaction cross sections at low energies in the statistical model which are the basis for the reliable prediction of astrophysical reaction rates.
Purpose: The present study attempts to constrain the -nucleus potential for by the analysis of angular distributions of elastic scattering.
Methods: Between and complete elastic scattering angular distributions were measured on the isotope with high precision at = 16.13 MeV, at = 18.07 MeV, and at = 19.87 MeV.
Results: The angular distributions at 18 and at 20 MeV allow a determination of the parameters of the -nucleus potential with small uncertainties, whereas the 16 MeV data cannot constrain well these parameters. A prediction of the cross section at very low energies from the present fits overestimates the experimental data from literature.
Conclusions: The tension between the relatively high cross sections from the analysis of elastic () scattering at MeV and the low cross sections of the () data at deep sub-Coulomb energies around 10 MeV requires further study. The energy gap between the () and () data can be best filled by new () data.
2 More- Received 2 February 2022
- Accepted 13 June 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.106.015802
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