Measurement of the 235U(n, f) cross section relative to the 6Li(n, t) and 10B(n, a) standards from thermal to 170 keV neutron energy range at n_TOF

The 235U(n, f ) cross section was measured at n_TOF relative to 6Li(n, t) and 10B(n,a) , with high resolution ( L=183.49(2) m) and in a wide energy range (25meV-170keV) with 1.5% systematic uncertainty, making use of a stack of six samples and six silicon detectors placed in the neutron beam. This a...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Authors: Amaducci, Simone, Cosentino, Luigi, Barbagallo, Massimo, Casanovas Hoste, Adrià|||0000-0002-7138-0894, Calviño Tavares, Francisco|||0000-0002-7198-4639, Cortés Rossell, Guillem Pere|||0000-0002-3648-5826, Tarifeño Saldivia, Ariel Esteban|||0000-0001-8552-5030
Format: article
Publication Date:2019
Country:España
Institution:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repository:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/174567
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/174567
https://dx.doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2019-12802-7
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Neutrons
Nuclear physics
Neutron
n_TOF
CERN
Nuclear reaction
Cross section
Física nuclear
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Física
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Energies::Energia nuclear
Description
Summary:The 235U(n, f ) cross section was measured at n_TOF relative to 6Li(n, t) and 10B(n,a) , with high resolution ( L=183.49(2) m) and in a wide energy range (25meV-170keV) with 1.5% systematic uncertainty, making use of a stack of six samples and six silicon detectors placed in the neutron beam. This allowed us to make a direct comparison of the yields of the 235U(n, f ) and of the two reference reactions under the same experimental conditions, and taking into account the forward/backward emission asymmetry. A hint of an anomaly in the 10-30keV neutron energy range had been previously observed in other experiments, indicating a cross section systematically lower by several percent relative to major evaluations. The present results indicate that the cross section in the 9-18keV neutron energy range is indeed overestimated by almost 5% in the recently released evaluated data files ENDF/B-VIII.0 and JEFF3.3, as a consequence of a 7% overestimate in a single GMA node in the IAEA reference file. Furthermore, these new high-resolution data confirm the existence of resonance-like structures in the keV neutron energy region. The results here reported may lead to a reduction of the uncertainty in the 1-100keV neutron energy region. Finally, from the present data, a value of 249.7±1.4(stat)±0.94(syst) b·eV has been extracted for the cross section integral between 7.8 and 11eV, confirming the value of 247.5±3 b·eV recently established as a standard.