Abstract. The neutron time-of-flight facility n TOF features a white neutron source produced by spallation through 20 GeV/c protons impinging on a lead target. The facility, aiming primarily at the measurement of neutron-induced reaction cross sections, was operating at CERN between 2001 and 2004, and then underwent a major upgrade in 2008. This paper presents in detail all the characteristics of the new neutron beam in the currently available configurations, which correspond to two different collimation systems and two choices of neutron moderator. The characteristics discussed include the intensity and energy dependence of the neutron flux, the spatial profile of the beam, the in-beam background components and the energy resolution/broadening. The discussion of these features is based on dedicated measurements and Monte Carlo simulations, and includes estimations of the systematic uncertainties of the mentioned quantities.

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We report on the measurement of the ^{7}Be(n,p)^{7}Li cross section from thermal to approximately 325 keV neutron energy, performed in the high-flux experimental area (EAR2) of the n_TOF facility at CERN. This reaction plays a key role in the lithium yield of the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) for standard cosmology. The only two previous time-of-flight measurements performed on this reaction did not cover the energy window of interest for BBN, and they showed a large discrepancy between each other. The measurement was performed with a Si telescope and a high-purity sample produced by implantation of a ^{7}Be ion beam at the ISOLDE facility at CERN. While a significantly higher cross section is found at low energy, relative to current evaluations, in the region of BBN interest, the present results are consistent with the values inferred from the time-reversal ^{7}Li(p,n)^{7}Be reaction, thus yielding only a relatively minor improvement on the so-called cosmological lithium problem. The relevance of these results on the near-threshold neutron production in the p+^{7}Li reaction is also discussed.

The very neutron-rich oxygen isotopes 25

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The 63 Niðn; Þ cross section has been measured for the first time at the neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN from thermal neutron energies up to 200 keV. In total, capture kernels of 12 (new)

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Determination of the neutron-capture rate of ^{17}C for rprocess nucleosynthesis With the R 3 B-LAND setup at GSI we have measured exclusive relative-energy spectra of the Coulomb dissociation of 18 C at a projectile energy around 425 AMeV on a lead target, which are needed to determine the radiative neutron-capture cross sections of 17 C into the ground state of 18 C. Those data have been used to constrain theoretical calculations for transitions populating excited states in 18 C. This allowed to derive the astrophysical cross section σ * nγ accounting for the thermal population of 17 C target states in astrophysical scenarios. The experimentally verified capture rate is significantly lower than those of previously obtained Hauser-Feshbach estimations at temperatures 2 T9 ≤ 1 GK. Network simulations with updated neutron-capture rates and hydrodynamics according to the neutrino-driven wind model as well as the neutron-star merger scenario reveal no pronounced influence of neutron capture of 17 C on the production of second-and third-peak elements in contrast to earlier sensitivity studies.