We discuss the existence of huge thermal neutron capture cross sections in
several nuclei. The values of the cross sections are several orders of
magnitude bigger than expected at these very low energies. We lend support to
the idea that this phenomenon is random in nature and is similar to what we
have learned from the study of parity violation in the actinide region. The
idea of statistical doorways is advanced as a unified concept in the
delineation of large numbers in the nuclear world. The average number of maxima
per unit mass, in the capture cross section is calculated and related
to the underlying cross section correlation function and found to be =3/(π2​γA​), where γA​ is a characteristic mass
correlation width which designates the degree of remnant coherence in the
system. We trace this coherence to nucleosynthesis which produced the nuclei
whose neutron capture cross sections are considered here.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Acta Physica Polonica B as a
Contribution to the proceedings of:Jagiellonian Symposium of Fundamental and
Applied Subatomic Physics, June 7- 12, 2015 Krakow, Polan