The 106Cd(α, α)106Cd elastic scattering in a wide energy range for γ process studies

Alpha elastic scattering angular distributions of the ¹⁰⁶Cd(α, α)¹⁰⁶Cd reaction were measured at three energies around the Coulomb barrier to provide a sensitive test for the α + nucleus optical potential parameter sets. Furthermore, the new high precision angular distributions, together with the data available from the literature were used to study the energy dependence of the locally optimized α + nucleus optical potential in a wide energy region ranging from E<inf>Lab</inf>=27.0MeV down to 16.1 MeV.The potentials under study are a basic prerequisite for the prediction of α-induced reaction cross sections and thus, for the calculation of stellar reaction rates used for the astrophysical γ process. Therefore, statistical model predictions using as input the optical potentials discussed in the present work are compared to the available ¹⁰⁶Cd + alpha cross section data.