Speaker
Description
Neutron-capture reactions on very neutron-rich nuclei are essential for heavy-element nucleosynthesis through the rapid neutron-capture process, now shown to take place in neutron-star merger events. For these exotic nuclei, radiative neutron capture is sensitive to their $\gamma$-emission probability at low $\gamma$ energies.
In this talk, we present measurements of the $\gamma$-decay strength for neutron-rich systems applying the $\beta$-Oslo method. The experiments were conducted at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory, Michigan State University, using the Summed NaI (SuN) total absorption spectrometer. Results on $^{78}$Ge, $^{70}$Ni and $^{51}$Ti are shown.
The $\beta$-Oslo method relies on measuring $\gamma$-decay spectra at well-defined excitation energies. The unfolding technique for obtaining reliable excitation energies is discussed.
