•F. Käppeler¹, J. Görres², R.C. Haight³, M. Heil¹, R. Plag¹, R. Reifarth³, R.S. Rundberg³, M. Wiescher² und J.B. Wilhelmy^3
1Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, Institut für Kernphysik, Postfach 3640, D-76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
²Department of Physics, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA
³Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

Inhomogeneous big bang models offer a possibility to bridge the mass gaps at A=5 and 8 via the reaction sequence ⁷Li(n,g)⁸Li(a,n)¹¹B(n,g) ¹²B(b^-)¹²C. Subsequent neutron captures ¹²C(n,g)¹³C(n,g)¹⁴C will then lead to the production of ¹⁴C which has a half-life of 5730 years. On the time scale of big bang nucleosynthesis ¹⁴C can be considered as stable and further proton, alpha, deuteron, and neutron capture reactions on ¹⁴C will result in the production of heavier nuclei (A ³ 20). Due to the high neutron abundance it is expected that the ¹⁴C(n,g) reaction competes strongly with the other reactions. The ¹⁴C(n,g) reaction is also important to validate (n,g) cross sections obtained via the inverse reaction by the Coulomb breakup method. ¹⁴C is one of the few nuclei where the (n,g) reaction can be measured directly and compared with results of Coulomb breakup experiments, in this case on the neutron-rich isotope ¹⁵C. In this contribution we report on new measurements of the ¹⁴C(n,g) reaction at neutron energies of 30, 150, and 500 keV using the fast cyclic activation technique.