Work

Imaginary-time method for ααn radiative capture reaction rates

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: The ααn process plays a crucial role in bridging the A = 5, 8 gap in a neutron-rich environment, determining its reaction rate highly significant in nuclear astrophysics. Using the imaginary-time approach, we calculated the ααn reaction rate over a very large spatial domain, fully accounting for the three-body effect without solving directly scattering problems. Although employing the same Hamiltonian as the transformed harmonic oscillator method, our calculated rate differs by more than ten orders of magnitude in the extremely low-temperature region but aligns well with the NACRE rate across all temperatures. A sufficiently large spatial domain is required at low temperatures to obtain accurate reaction rates, indicating the indispensability of direct three-body capture in this temperature regime.

Source: Physics Letters B

DOI: 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.140196

Authors: Luanhong Pei, Jianfeng Zhu, Yasuro Funaki, Bo Zhou

Institutions: Fudan University, Kanto Gakuin University, National Natural Science Foundation of China

Language: English

Topic: Nuclear physics research studies

Subfield: Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: diamond

Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China, Fudan University, Higher Education Discipline Innovation Project, National Key Research and Development Program of China

Awards: G3030300266, G4886232691, G848665098