Nucleosynthesis through the ¹⁵N system, total neutron cross section on ¹⁴N

The ¹⁵N system becomes particle unbound for ¹¹B+a, ¹⁴N+n and ¹⁴C+p at a similar excitation energy, making it more likely that levels will share significant portions of their decay width through these three channels near their thresholds. For nucleosynthesis applications, in particular, neutron production in the s-process and in first stars, the cross sections of the ¹⁴N(n,p)¹⁴C and ¹¹B(a,n)¹⁴N reactions are of particular interest, respectively. We report on continued efforts to improve an R-matrix description of the experimental cross sections for this system through new measurements of the ¹⁴N+n total cross section at the nELBE facility. We discuss an inconsistency with the lowest energy resonance’s spin-parity between our measurement and a previous one.