  Photo-nuclear reactions of light nuclei below a mass of $A=60$ are studied
experimentally and theoretically by the PANDORA (Photo-Absorption of Nuclei and
Decay Observation for Reactions in Astrophysics) project. Two experimental
methods, virtual-photon excitation by proton scattering and real-photo
absorption by a high-brilliance gamma-ray beam produced by laser Compton
scattering, will be applied to measure the photo-absorption cross sections and
the decay branching ratio of each decay channel as a function of the photon
energy. Several nuclear models, e.g. anti-symmetrized molecular dynamics,
mean-field type models, a large-scale shell model, and ab initio models, will
be employed to predict the photo-nuclear reactions. The uncertainty in the
model predictions will be evaluated from the discrepancies between the model
predictions and the experimental data. The data and the predictions will be
implemented in a general reaction calculation code TALYS . The results will be
applied to the simulation of the photo-disintegration process of
ultra-high-energy cosmic rays in inter-galactic propagation.
