Neutron transmission measurements at nELBE

¹ Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden - Rossendorf, Institut für Strahlenphysik, Bautzner Landstrasse 400, 01328 Dresden, Germany
² Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany
³ Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt, Bundesallee 100, 38116 Braunschweig, Germany
⁴ European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Retieseweg 111, 2440 Geel, Belgium
⁵ Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Institut für Angewandte Physik, Max-von-Laue-Str. 1, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
⁶ GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Planckstraße 1, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany
⁷ University of Notre Dame, Department of Physics, Notre Dame, IN 46556, U.S.A.
⁸ Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Institut für Physik, Staudingerweg 7, 55128 Mainz, Germany

^* e-mail: A.Junghans@hzdr.de

Published online: 30 September 2020

Abstract

Neutron total cross sections are an important source of experimental data in the evaluation of neutron-induced cross sections. The sum of all neutron-induced reaction cross sections can be determined with a precision of a few per cent in a relative measurement. The neutron spectrum of the photoneutron source nELBE extends in the fast region from about 100 keV to 10 MeV and has favourable conditions for transmission measurements due to the low instantaneous flux of neutrons and low gamma-flash background. Several materials of interest (in part included in the CIELO evaluation or on the HPRL of OECD/NEA) have been investigated: ¹⁹⁷Au [1, 2], ^natFe [2], ^natW [2], ²³⁸U, ^natPt, ⁴He, ^natO, ^natNe, ^natXe. For gaseous targets high pressure gas cells with flat end-caps have been built that hold up to 200 bar pressure. The experimental setup will be presented including results from several transmission experiments and the data analysis leading to the total cross sections will be discussed.