Indirect neutron-capture cross-section measurements with the CeBrA-SPS setup at FSU

The abundances of heavy elements in the universe depend sensitively on the neutron-capture reaction rates. However, direct measurement of these reaction rates is often experimentally infeasible, while theoretical estimates have huge uncertainties. As a result, several indirect experimental techniques, including the Surrogate Reaction Method (SRM) and the Oslo method, have been developed to indirectly constrain neutron-capture reaction rates. At a high level, these indirect approaches use charged particle reactions to mimic the neutron-induced reaction of interest and then utilize these data to constrain nuclear statistical models. The present work investigates the usage of deuterium and tritium beams at Florida State University (FSU) to perform (d, p𝛾) and (t, p𝛾) reactions to indirectly constrain the neutron-capture rates on heavy elements. These measurements are performed with the CeBrA-SPS setup for detecting particle-𝛾 coincidences. I will present the simulations using ‘ReacTool’ for this setup and the first results from the ¹⁸⁰Hf (d, p𝛾) experiment with implications for the planned ¹⁸⁰Hf (t, p𝛾) measurement.