Determination of the stellar (n,γ) cross section of Ca40 with accelerator mass spectrometry

The stellar (n,γ) cross section of Ca40 at kT=25 keV has been measured with a combination of the activation technique and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS). This combination is required when direct off-line counting of the produced activity is compromised by the long half-life and/or missing γ-ray transitions. The neutron activations were performed at the Karlsruhe Van de Graaff accelerator using the quasistellar neutron spectrum of kT=25 keV produced by the Li7(p,n)Be7 reaction. The subsequent AMS measurements were carried out at the Vienna Environmental Research Accelerator (VERA) with a 3 MV tandem accelerator. The doubly magic Ca40 is a bottle-neck isotope in incomplete silicon burning, and its neutron capture cross section determines the amount of leakage, thus impacting on the eventual production of iron group elements. Because of its high abundance, Ca40 can also play a secondary role as "neutron poison" for the s-process. Previous determinations of this value at stellar energies were based on time-of-flight measurements. Our method uses an independent approach, and yields for the Maxwellian-averaged cross section at kT=30 keV a value of σ30keV=5.73±0.34 mb.