Astrophysical relevance of γ transition energies

The relevant gamma energy range is explicitly identified where additional gamma strength must be located to have an impact on astrophysically relevant reactions. It is shown that folding the energy dependences of the transmission coefficients and the level density leads to maximal contributions for γ energies of 2⩽Eγ⩽4 unless quantum selection rules allow isolated states to contribute. Under this condition, electric dipole transitions dominate. These findings allow us to more accurately judge the relevance of modifications of the γ strength for astrophysics.