Radioactive target needs for nuclear reactor physics and nuclear astrophysics

Nuclear reaction cross sections of short-lived nuclei are key inputs for new generation nuclear reactor simulations and for models describing the nucleosynthesis of elements. After discussing various topics of nuclear astrophysics and reactor physics where the demand of nuclear data on unstable nuclei is strong, we describe the general characteristics of the targets needed to measure the requested data. In some cases the half-life of the nucleus of interest is so short that it is not possible to produce a target and perform the measurement. However, some alternative methods have been developed that allow one to obtain neutron-induced cross sections of highly radioactive nuclei. One of these methods is the surrogate reaction technique. We explain the principle of the surrogate method and describe the characteristics of the targets used in surrogate experiments.