Impact of Pairing Correlations on Electron Capture Cross Sections and Nuclear Partition Functions of 94,96,98,100Mo in Astrophysical Environment

This study investigates the effects of nuclear pairing gaps on Gamow-Teller (GT[Formula: see text]) strength distributions, nuclear partition functions (NPFs) and electron capture cross sections (ECCs) for neutron-rich molybdenum isotopes ([Formula: see text]Mo, [Formula: see text]Mo, [Formula: see text]Mo, and [Formula: see text]Mo) under astrophysical conditions. The traditional pairing gap [Formula: see text] (=12/[Formula: see text]), the four-point [Formula: see text] and five-point [Formula: see text] empirical pairing gap formulae were employed in our nuclear model to explore their impact on [Formula: see text]-decay properties of selected Mo even-even isotopes. Larger pairing gaps, witnessed in the [Formula: see text] scheme, led to enhancement in the calculated GT[Formula: see text] strength and ECCs, especially at higher energies. NPFs were altered up to 14.64% with changing pairing gaps. Total ECCs (TECCs) showed a significant dependence on temperature and pairing gaps. TECCs of heavier isotopes of Mo were affected more by a change of pairing gaps. The TECCs altered by 4% and 16% for [Formula: see text]Mo and [Formula: see text]Mo, respectively, with changing pairing gaps. The TECCs increased by approximately two orders of magnitude as the temperature changed from 0.5 MeV to 1.5 MeV, with heavier isotopes displaying greater sensitivity to pairing effects. Our results highlight the importance of accurately modeling thermal and pairing interactions in astrophysical environment such as core collapse supernovae.