Novel technique for measurements of neutron cross sections and its application to nuclear astrophysics

A new technique for measurements of total neutron cross sections is presented. This method has been applied to measurements of the excitation function for the 11 B + n system at E n equals 7.2 - 8.5 MeV, in order to obtain the 8 Li(n,(alpha) ) 11 B thermonuclear reaction rate.