Studying interactions of radioactive ions with neutrons is particularly demanding and has been performed only in a few cases. Some of these interactions are crucial in several astrophysical contexts. In the present work, the case of the ⁷Be destruction induced by the (n, α) reaction is investigated at the energies typical of the primordial nucleosynthesis by means of the Trojan Horse Method applied to the ²H(⁷Be, αα)p quasi-free reaction. The ⁷Be(n, α)⁴He cross-section has been measured in a single experiment from ∼2 MeV down to cosmological energies. The corresponding deduced reaction rate has been adopted to evaluate the impact on big bang nucleosynthesis and on the lithium problem.

Background: Heavy-ion induced two-nucleon transfer reactions are powerful tools to reveal peculiar aspects of the atomic nucleus, such as pairing correlations, single-particle and collective degrees of freedom, and more. Also, these processes are in competition with the direct meson exchange in the double charge exchange reactions, which have recently attracted great interest due to their possible connection to neutrinoless double-β decay. In this framework, the exploration of two-nucleon transfer reactions in the ${}^{20}\mathrm{Ne}+{}^{116}\mathrm{Cd}$ collision at energies above the Coulomb barrier is particularly relevant since the ${}^{116}\mathrm{Cd}$ nucleus is a candidate for the double-β decay.

The elastic scattering of the weakly bound radioactive nuclei ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ and ${}^7\mathrm{Be}$ from a ${}^{208}\mathrm{Pb}$ target was measured for the first time in the energy range around the Coulomb barrier. The data were analyzed using the optical model and the continuum discretized coupled channels (CDCC) formalisms. The reaction cross sections extracted from the optical model fits clearly indicate a remarkably enhanced reaction probability for the very weakly bound ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ ($S_p=137.5\mathrm{keV}$) compared to similar mass nuclei interacting with the same target nucleus. CDCC calculations assuming a ${}^3\mathrm{He}+{}^4\mathrm{He}$ cluster model well described the ${}^7\mathrm{Be}$ experimental elastic scattering angular distributions, whereas the use of a ${}^7\mathrm{Be}+p$ cluster model of ${}^8\mathrm{B}$ with an inert ${}^7\mathrm{Be}$ core gave a relatively poor description of the corresponding experimental data, suggesting that this model may be too simplistic and the possibility of core excitation should not be ignored.