Electron capture cross sections for stellar nucleosynthesis

In the first stage of this work, we perform detailed calculations for the cross sections of the electron capture on nuclei under laboratory conditions. Towards this aim we exploit the advantages of a refined version of the proton-neutron quasi-particle random-phase approximation (pn-QRPA) and carry out state-by-state evaluations of the rates of exclusive processes that lead to any of the accessible transitions within the chosen model space. In the second stage of our present study, we translate the above mentioned $e^-$-capture cross sections to the stellar environment ones by inserting the temperature dependence through a Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution describing the stellar electron gas. As a concrete nuclear target we use the $^{66}Zn$ isotope, which belongs to the iron group nuclei and plays prominent role in stellar nucleosynthesis at core collapse supernovae environment.