Microscopic HFB plus QRPA predictions of dipole strength for astrophysics applications

Large-scale QRPA calculations of the E1-strength are performed on top of HFB calculations in order to derive the radiative neutron capture cross sections for the whole nuclear chart The HFB + QRPA predictions based on various Skyrme forces with different pairing prescriptions and parameterizations are confronted with experimental photoabsorption data for spherical nuclei. Within the approximations of the present model, the effective nucleon-nucleon interaction is probed with the GDR data. The dipole strengths obtained with the present HFB + QRPA model is finally used to estimate the radiative neutron capture cross section for all nuclei of relevance in astrophysics applications. The resulting rates are shown to be close to the one predicted with the previously determined HFBCS + QRPA model, but for neutron-rich nuclei to differ significantly from the ones obtained with the empirical Lorentzian-like formula. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.