Charge exchange reactions and applications to astrophysics

Abstract

Neutrino-induced reactions have been known to play important roles as the neutrino process on the nucleosynthesis in core collapsing supernovae (SNe) explosions because expected neutrino flux and energy are sufficiently high enough to excite many relevant nuclei in spite of small cross sections of the weak interaction. However, we do not have enough data for the neutrino reaction to be exploited in the network calculation. Only a sparse data in the relevant energy range is known, in specific, for 12C. Therefore we have to rely on theoretical estimation of the reaction, which has two different modes, charge current (CC) and neutral current (NC). In particular, CC reactions are closely related to charge exchange reactions (CEXRs) which are feasible in the experiment, such as, (p,n) or (n,p) reactions. These CEXRs are usually dominated by the Gamow-Teller (GT) transition in the lower energy region. In this respect, any theoretical approaches for the neutrino reaction should be investigated for the CEXR because we have and expect more useful experimental data. After confirming our models to the GT strength deduced from the CEXR, we calculated neutrino-induced reactions in the energy range below the quasielastic region for nuclei of astrophysical importance. Our calculations are carried out with the Quasi-particle Random Phase Approximation (QRPA), which successfully described the nuclear beta decays of relevant nuclei. To describe neutrino-nucleus reactions, general multipole transitions by the weak interaction are considered for CC and NC reactions. Both reactions are described in a theoretical framework. Our results are shown to well reproduce the data from CEXRs and the sparse experimental data related to the neutrino-induced reaction, and further extended for neutrino reactions on various nuclear targets. Parts of the results are reported in this talk. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.