Impact of nuclear level density and radiative strength function models on the S factors of (α, γ) reactions relevant to p-nuclei production

Abstract The astrophysical S factors of ( α , γ ) reactions are crucial inputs to nuclear reaction network simulations for studying p -nuclei production. Previous work revealed considerable discrepancies between theoretical and experimental S factors using different nuclear level densities (NLD) and radiative strength functions (RSF). Accordingly, in this article, we studied the influence of six RSF and four NLD models on the astrophysical S factors of ( α , γ ) reactions on 16 target nuclei. The microscopic NLD and RSF models under investigation are based on the Hartree–Fock + Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (HFBCS) and Hartree–Fock-Bogulubov (HFB) mean-field calculations. The obtained results have shown that within the α -OMP proposed in Nhu Le and Quang Hung (2022 Phys. Rev. C 105 014602), RSF and NLD models used in the S factor computation yield root mean square ( rms ) deviations of less than 0.750, and phenomenological NLD and RSF models provide better predictions for astrophysical S factors than microscopic ones in all cases considered. More research is needed on NLD and RSF models to improve prediction accuracy and reduce deviations in calculations of the S factors of radiative α captures.