No Arabic abstract
In order to measure the total cross section for thermal neutrons, a photoneutron source (PNS, phase 1) has been developed for the acquisition of nuclear data for the Thorium Molten Salt Reactor (TMSR) at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics (SINAP). PNS is an electron LINAC pulsed neutron facility that uses the time-of-flight (TOF) technique. It records the neutron TOF and identifies neutrons and $gamma$-rays by using a digital signal processing technique. The background is obtained by using a combination of employing 12.8 cm boron-loaded polyethylene(PEB) (5$%$ w.t.) to block the flight path and Monte Carlo methods. The neutron total cross sections of natural beryllium are measured in the neutron energy region from 0.007 to 0.1 eV. The present measurement result is compared with the fold Harvey data with the response function of PNS.
Measurements of polarized neutron--polarized $^3$He scattering are reported. The target consisted of cryogenically-polarized solid $^3$He, thickness 0.04 atom/b and polarization 40%. The longitudinal and transverse total cross-section differences $Deltasigma_L$ and $Deltasigma_T$ were measured for incident neutron energies 2-8 MeV. The results are compared to phase-shift predictions based on four different analyses of n-$^3$He scattering. The best agreement is obtained with a recent R-matrix analysis of A=4 scattering and reaction data, lending strong suport to the $^4$He level scheme obtained in that analysis.
Liquid hydrogen is a dense Bose fluid whose equilibrium properties are both calculable from first principles using various theoretical approaches and of interest for the understanding of a wide range of questions in many body physics. Unfortunately, the pair correlation function $g(r)$ inferred from neutron scattering measurements of the differential cross section $dsigma over dOmega$ from different measurements reported in the literature are inconsistent. We have measured the energy dependence of the total cross section and the scattering cross section for slow neutrons with energies between 0.43~meV and 16.1~meV on liquid hydrogen at 15.6~K (which is dominated by the parahydrogen component) using neutron transmission measurements on the hydrogen target of the NPDGamma collaboration at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The relationship between the neutron transmission measurement we perform and the total cross section is unambiguous, and the energy range accesses length scales where the pair correlation function is rapidly varying. At 1~meV our measurement is a factor of 3 below the data from previous work. We present evidence that these previous measurements of the hydrogen cross section, which assumed that the equilibrium value for the ratio of orthohydrogen and parahydrogen has been reached in the target liquid, were in fact contaminated with an extra non-equilibrium component of orthohydrogen. Liquid parahydrogen is also a widely-used neutron moderator medium, and an accurate knowledge of its slow neutron cross section is essential for the design and optimization of intense slow neutron sources. We describe our measurements and compare them with previous work.
Neutron capture measurements on $^{155}$Gd and $^{157}$Gd were performed using the time-of-flight technique at the n_TOF facility at CERN. Four samples in form of self-sustaining metallic discs isotopically enriched in $^{155}$Gd and $^{157}$Gd were used. The measurements were carried out at the experimental area (EAR1) at 185 m from the neutron source, with an array of 4 C$_6$D$_6$ liquid scintillation detectors. The capture cross sections of $^{155}$Gd and $^{157}$Gd at neutron kinetic energy of 0.0253 eV have been estimated to be 62.2(2.2) kb and 239.8(9.3) kb, respectively, thus up to 6% different relative to the ones reported in the nuclear data libraries. A resonance shape analysis has been performed in the resolved resonance region up to 180 eV and 300 eV, respectively, in average resonance parameters have been found in good agreement with evaluations. Above these energies the observed resonance-like structures in the cross section have been tentatively characterised in terms of resonance energy and area up to 1 keV.
Neutron lifetime is one of the most important physical constants which determines parameters of the weak interaction and predictions of primordial nucleosynthesis theory. There remains the unsolved problem of a 3.9{sigma} discrepancy between measurements of this lifetime using neutrons in beams and those with stored neutrons (UCN). In our experiment we measure the lifetime of neutrons trapped by Earths gravity in an open-topped vessel. Two configurations of the trap geometry are used to change the mean frequency of UCN collisions with the surfaces - this is achieved by plunging an additional surface into the trap without breaking the vacuum. The trap walls are coated with a hydrogen-less fluorine-containing polymer to reduce losses of UCN. The stability of this coating to multiple thermal cycles between 80 K and 300 K was tested. At 80 K, the probability of UCN loss due to collisions with the trap walls is just 1.5% of the probability of beta-decay. The free neutron lifetime is determined by extrapolation to an infinitely large trap with zero collision frequency. The result of these measurements is 881.5 +/- 0.7_stat +/- 0.6_syst s which is consistent with the conventional value of 880.2 +/- 1.0 s presented by the Particle Data Group. Future prospects for this experiment are in further cooling to 10 K which will lead to an improved accuracy of measurement. In conclusion we present an analysis of currently-available data on various measurements of the neutron lifetime.
The upper limit of the total cross section for the pn --> pn eta reaction has been determined near the kinematical threshold in the excess energy range from 0 to 24 MeV. The measurement was performed using the COSY-11 detector setup, a deuteron cluster target, and the proton beam of COSY with a momentum of 3.35 GeV/c. The energy dependence of the upper limit of the cross section was extracted exploiting the Fermi momenta of nucleons inside the deuteron. Comparison of the determined upper limit of the ratio R_eta = sigma(pn --> pn eta) / sigma(pp --> pp eta) with the corresponding ratio for eta-meson production does not favor the dominance of the N*(1535) resonance in the production process of the eta meson and suggests nonidentical production mechanisms for eta and eta mesons.