Reaction mechanisms in the ⁶Li+ ⁵²Cr system

¹ Fusion Neutronics Laboratory, Institute for Plasma Research, Bhat, Gandhinagar – 382 428, India
² Department of Physics, The M.S.University of Baroda, Vadodara 390 002, India
³ Nuclear Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai - 400 085, India
⁴ Department of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh - 202002, India

^a Corresponding author: bhawna.16p@gmail.com

Published online: 29 January 2015

Abstract

Reactions induced by the weakly bound ⁶Li projectile interacting with the intermediate mass target ⁵²Cr are investigated. The choice of this particular reaction in our study is because it is proposed as a surrogate reaction [⁶Li(⁵²Cr, d)⁵⁶Fe*] for the measurement of ⁵⁵Fe(n,p) reaction cross-section, which has been found to be very important in fusion reactor studies. All the conditions which have to be satisfied for using the surrogate method have been checked. The energy of ⁶Li beam is selected in a way so as to get equivalent neutron energy in the region of 9-14 MeV, which is of primary interest in fusion reactor application. In the present work, statistical model calculations PACE (Projection-Angular-Momentum-Coupled-Evaporation), ALICE and Continuum-Discretized–Coupled-Channel (CDCC: FRESCO) have been used to provide information for the ⁶Li + ⁵²Cr system and the respective contributions of different reaction mechanisms. The present theoretical work is an important step in the direction towards studying the cross-section of the ⁵⁵Fe(n, p)⁵⁵Mn reaction by surrogate method.