PROFIL-2 Experiment and neutron capture cross sections of Europium isotopes

¹ CEA, Cadarache, DEN/DER/SPRC/LEPh, 13108 Saint Paul Les Durance, France
² I-MEP2, University Grenoble Alpes, 38402 Saint Martin d'Heres, France

^* e-mail: zholdybayev@inp.kz

Published online: 30 September 2020

Abstract

Neutron-induced cross section is one of the key quantities in nuclear physics and nuclear engineering. The integral experiment can give good feedback to the cross sections with low uncertainties. Using the optical model and statistical model, the neutron-induced total and capture cross sections of¹⁵³Eu are revaluated according to the experimental microscopic total cross sections and the PROFIL-2 integral experiment. The corresponding uncertainties and covariances are determined with the data assimilation method implemented in CONRAD code. On the other hand, the previous interpretation of the PROFIL-2 experiment showed that JEFF-3.1 overestimates the neutron-induced capture cross section of ¹⁵¹ Eu by a factor of 2. Further analysis performed in the present work points out that the large difference between calculation and experimental data is mainly due to the lack of^152m1 Eu in ERANOS code, which was used to interpret the PROFIL-2 experiment. The correction of ^152m1Eu on the interpretation largely reduces the difference between JEFF-3.1 and PROFIL-2 and shows the agreement between the PROFIL-2 integral experiment and other microscopic measurements. The revaluated neutron-induced total and capture cross sections of ¹⁵¹ Eu and ¹⁵³Eu correspond well with both the microscopic experimental measurements and the PROFIL-2 integral experiment.