Photon strength functions from (p,γ) reactions

Abstract

The 50Cr(p,γ)51Mn proton capture reaction has been used to study the photon strength functions by utilizing primary gamma ray transitions from the entry states to discrete states of known spins and parities. The reaction was conducted with the 3 MV Tandetron accelerator at iThemba LABS which delivered proton beams of 2.5 to 2.740, 2.760 to 3.0 MeV and 3.675 to 4.498 MeV in intervals of 20-25 keV with beam currents of up to 5 μA. In this work the proton capture reaction was employed together with the Average Resonance Capture method to extract the shape of the PSF of 51Mn.