Abstract
Semidirect capture, a two-step process that excites a giant-dipole resonance followed by its radiative
de-excitation, is a dominant process near giant-dipole resonances, that is, for incoming neutron
energies within 5–20 MeV. At lower energies such processes may affect neutron capture rates that
are relevant to astrophysical nucleosynthesis models. We implement a semidirect capture model
in the coupled-channel reaction code Fresco and validate it by comparing the cross section for
direct-semidirect capture 208Pb(n,g)209Pb to experimental data. We also investigate the effect of
low-energy electric dipole strength in the pygmy resonance. We use a conventional single-particle
direct-semidirect capture code Cupido for comparison. Furthermore, we present and discuss our
results for direct-semidirect capture reaction 130Sn(n,g)131Sn, the cross section of which is known
to have a significant effect on nucleosynthesis models.
