Experimental cross section of 144 Sm ( α , γ ) 148 Gd and implications for the p - process

The cross section of the Sm(α, γ)Gd reaction has been measured at bombarding energies in the 10.513.4MeV range using an activationmethod based on the off-line α-activity measurement of the Gd residual nucleus. The long measuring time of the α-decay has required the use of etched track detectors. The resulting cross sections and astrophysical S-factors are compared to new statistical model calculations. The measured data at low energies reflect the strong energy dependence of the optical potential which is found to affect significantly our predictions of the α-capture rate.