No Arabic abstract
The neutron-capture reaction plays a critical role in the synthesis of the elements in stars and is important for societal applications including nuclear power generation and stockpile-stewardship science. However, it is difficult - if not impossible - to directly measure neutron capture cross sections for the exotic, short-lived nuclei that participate in these processes. In this Letter we demonstrate a new technique which can be used to indirectly determine neutron-capture cross sections for exotic systems. This technique makes use of the $(d,p)$ transfer reaction, which has long been used as a tool to study the structure of nuclei. Recent advances in reaction theory, together with data collected using this reaction, enable the determination of neutron-capture cross sections for short-lived nuclei. A benchmark study of the $^{95}$Mo$(d,p)$ reaction is presented, which illustrates the approach and provides guidance for future applications of the method with short-lived isotopes produced at rare isotope accelerators.
A search for the muon catalyzed fusion reaction dd --> ^4He +gamma in the ddmu muonic molecule was performed using the experimental mu CF installation TRITON and NaI(Tl) detectors for gamma-quanta. The high pressure target filled with deuterium at temperatures from 85 K to 800 K was exposed to the negative muon beam of the JINR phasotron to detect gamma-quanta with energy 23.8 MeV. The first experimental estimation for the yield of the radiative deuteron capture from the ddmu state J=1 was obtained at the level n_{gamma}leq 2times 10^{-5} per one fusion.
Reliable neutron-induced reaction cross sections of unstable nuclei are essential for nuclear astrophysics and applications but their direct measurement is often impossible. The surrogate-reaction method is one of the most promising alternatives to access these cross sections. In this work, we successfully applied the surrogate-reaction method to infer for the first time both the neutron-induced fission and radiative-capture cross sections of 239Pu in a consistent manner from a single measurement. This was achieved by combining simultaneously-measured fission and gamma-emission probabilities for the 240Pu(4He,4He) surrogate reaction with a calculation of the angular-momentum and parity distributions populated in this reaction. While other experiments measure the probabilities for some selected gamma-ray transitions, we measure the gamma-emission probability. This enlarges the applicability of the surrogate-reaction method.
A high-power Liquid-Lithium Target (LiLiT) was used for the first time for neutron production via the thick-target 7Li(p,n)7Be reaction and quantitative determination of neutron capture cross sections. Bombarded with a 1-2 mA proton beam at 1.92 MeV from the Soreq Applied Research Accelerator Facility (SARAF), the setup yields a 30-keV quasi-Maxwellian neutron spectrum with an intensity of 3-5e10 n/s, more than one order of magnitude larger than present near-threshold 7Li(p,n) neutron sources. The setup was used here to determine the 30-keV Maxwellian averaged cross section (MACS) of 94Zr and 96Zr as 28.0+-0.6 mb and 12.4+-0.5 mb respectively, based on activation measurements. The precision of the cross section determinations results both from the high neutron yield and from detailed simulations of the entire experimental setup. We plan to extend our experimental studies to low-abundance and radioactive targets. In addition, we show here that the setup yields intense high-energy (17.6 and 14.6 MeV) prompt capture gamma-rays from the 7Li(p,gamma)8Be reaction with yields of ~3e8 gammas/s/mA and ~4e8 gammas/s/mA, respectively, evidenced by the 90Zr(gamma,n)89Zr photonuclear reaction.
Parity-odd asymmetries in the electromagnetic decays of compound nuclei can sometimes be amplified above values expected from simple dimensional estimates by the complexity of compound nuclear states. In this work we use a statistical approach to estimate the root mean square (RMS) of the distribution of expected parity-odd correlations $vec{s_{n}} cdot vec{k_{gamma}}$, where $vec {s_{n}}$ is the neutron spin and $vec{k_{gamma}}$ is the momentum of the gamma, in the integrated gamma spectrum from the capture of cold polarized neutrons on Al, Cu, and In and we present measurements of the asymmetries in these and other nuclei. Based on our calculations, large enhancements of asymmetries were not predicted for the studied nuclei and the statistical estimates are consistent with our measured upper bounds on the asymmetries.
We have measured the $gamma$-ray energy spectrum from the thermal neutron capture, ${}^{157}$Gd$(n,gamma){}^{158}$Gd, on an enriched $^{157}$Gd target (Gd$_{2}$O$_{3}$) in the energy range from 0.11 MeV up to about 8 MeV. The target was placed inside the germanium spectrometer of the ANNRI detector at J-PARC and exposed to a neutron beam from the Japan Spallation Neutron Source (JSNS). Radioactive sources ($^{60}$Co, $^{137}$Cs, and $^{152}$Eu) and the reaction $^{35}$Cl($n$,$gamma$) were used to determine the spectrometers detection efficiency for $gamma$ rays at energies from 0.3 to 8.5 MeV. Using a Geant4-based Monte Carlo simulation of the detector and based on our data, we have developed a model to describe the $gamma$-ray spectrum from the thermal ${}^{157}$Gd($n$,$gamma$) reaction. While we include the strength information of 15 prominent peaks above 5 MeV and associated peaks below 1.6 MeV from our data directly into the model, we rely on the theoretical inputs of nuclear level density and the photon strength function of ${}^{158}$Gd to describe the continuum $gamma$-ray spectrum from the ${}^{157}$Gd($n$,$gamma$) reaction. Our model combines these two components. The results of the comparison between the observed $gamma$-ray spectra from the reaction and the model are reported in detail.