Photodisintegration of the p-nuclei 92Mo and 144Sm in the astrophysically relevant energy window

The heavy neutron deficient p-nuclei are produced in explosive stellar environments via photodisintegration reactions like (g ,n), (g ,p) and (g ,alpha) on r- or s- seed nuclei. The reaction rates of p-nuclei are mostly based on theoretical parameterizations using statistical model calculations. We study experimentally the photodisintegration rates of heavy nuclei at the bremsstrahlung facility of the superconducting electron accelerator ELBE of FZ Dresden-Rossendorf. Photoactivation measurements on the astrophysically relevant p-nuclei 92Mo and 144Sm have been performed with bremsstrahlung end-point energies from 10.0 to 16.5 MeV. The activation yields are compared with calculations using cross sections from recent Hauser-Feshbach models. The sensitivity of the statistical models to the input ingredients like photon strength function, optical potentials are tested against the experimental activation yield.