First Experimental Constraint on the Fe-59(n, gamma)Fe-60 Reaction Cross Section at Astrophysical Energies via the Coulomb Dissociation of Fe-60

The radionuclide Fe-60 has been of great interest to the nuclear astrophysics community for over a decade. An initial discrepancy between the observed and modeled Galactic Fe-60/Al-26 ratio motivated numerous studies focused on the nucleosynthesis of these two isotopes, though the cross section of the primary astrophysical production reaction, Fe-59(n,gamma)Fe-60, has remained purely theoretical. The present work offers a first experimental constraint on the Fe-59(n,gamma)Fe-60 cross section at astrophysical energies, obtained indirectly via Coulomb dissociation, and demonstrates that the theoretical reaction rates used in present stellar models are not highly erroneous.