Speaker
Description
The astrophysical i process has been proposed to explain astronomical observations that could not be explained by the traditional s and r processes. Neutron-capture reactions play an important role in the produced abundance pattern within the i process. In this talk I will present recent results on experimental constraints for important neutron capture reaction rates. I will focus on the mass 90 and 140 regions, where stellar observations show sensitivity to model parameters and nuclear physics inputs. The measurements of the relevant reactions took place at the CARIBU facility at Argonne National Lab using the SuN detector. The $\beta$-Oslo method was used to extract the nuclear level density and the $\gamma$ ray strength function, which were used to constrain the relevant neutron capture reaction rates. For each case I will discuss the impact of the relevant reactions on i-process nucleosynthesis.