Spallation yields of neutrons produced in thick lead/bismuth targets by protons at incident energies of 420 and 590 MeV

K. Van der Meer, M. B. Goldberg, E. H. Lehmann, H. Ät Abderrahim, D. Bar, D. Berkovits, M. Daum, S. Dekelver, Y. Foucher, J. Gerber, F. Van Gestel, W. Hajdas, H. P. Linder, E. Malambu, I. Mardor, J. Oeyen, D. Saphier, Asher Shor, M. Willekens, Y. Yariv

    Research outputpeer-review

    Abstract

    Spallation-neutron yields for protons at Ep=420 and 590 MeV incident on thick Pb/Bi targets have been measured via activation analysis of Au and Mn foils at the PSI proton irradiation facility. The data were obtained with the water-bath method, in a novel variant that incorporates a detailed MCNPX simulation in the analysis procedure. They include slow-neutron fluence distributions at Ep=300, 420 and 590 MeV, Cd-ratio distributions at Ep=300 MeV and total n/p values of 6.0±0.3 and 9.6±0.4 at 420 and 590 MeV, respectively. The latter are in line with neutron-yield systematics for protons on thick Pb-targets, which are found to vary with remarkable regularity over a broad range of incident energies. The results of the present work, along with those obtained recently by various groups on thin and thick-target neutron spectra, neutron-multiplicities and the radio-nuclide inventory produced, constitute a database pertinent to the design and optimization of new, high-intensity spallation-neutron sources at these proton energies.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)202-220
    Number of pages19
    JournalNuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section B: Beam Interactions with Materials and Atoms
    Volume217
    Issue number2
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Apr 2004

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Nuclear and High Energy Physics
    • Instrumentation

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