Novel Method to Study Neutron Capture of $^{235}\mathrm{U}$ and $^{238}\mathrm{U}$ Simultaneously at keV Energies

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Novel Method to Study Neutron Capture of ${}^{235}U$ and ${}^{238}U$ Simultaneously at keV Energies

A. Wallner, T. Belgya, M. Bichler, K. Buczak, I. Dillmann, F. Käppeler, C. Lederer, A. Mengoni, F. Quinto, P. Steier, and L. Szentmiklosi

Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 192501 – Published 14 May 2014

Abstract

The neutron capture cross sections of the main uranium isotopes, ${}^{235}U$ and ${}^{238}U$ , were measured simultaneously for keV energies, for the first time by combining activation technique and atom counting of the reaction products using accelerator mass spectrometry. New data, with a precision of 3%–5%, were obtained from mg-sized natural uranium samples for neutron energies with an equivalent Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution of $k T \sim 25 keV$ and for a broad energy distribution peaking at 426 keV. The cross-section ratio of ${}^{235}U (n, γ) / {}^{238}U (n, γ)$ can be deduced in accelerator mass spectrometry directly from the atom ratio of the reaction products ${}^{236}U / {}^{239}U$ , independent of any fluence normalization. Our results confirm the values at the lower band of existing data. They serve as important anchor points to resolve present discrepancies in nuclear data libraries as well as for the normalization of cross-section data used in the nuclear astrophysics community for s-process studies.

Received 29 January 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.112.192501

Authors & Affiliations

A. Wallner^1,2,*, T. Belgya³, M. Bichler⁴, K. Buczak^2,4, I. Dillmann^5,6, F. Käppeler⁵, C. Lederer^2,7,†, A. Mengoni⁸, F. Quinto^2,‡, P. Steier², and L. Szentmiklosi³

¹Department of Nuclear Physics, RSPE, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200, Australia
²Faculty of Physics, VERA, Isotope Research & Nuclear Physics, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria
³Nuclear Analysis and Radiography Department (NARD), Centre for Energy Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1525 Budapest, Hungary
⁴Atominstitut, Vienna University of Technology, 1040 Vienna, Austria
⁵Institut für Kernphysik, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Campus North, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany
⁶TRIUMF, Vancouver, British Columbia V6T2A3, Canada
⁷Institute for Applied Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt, 60438 Frankfurt, Germany
⁸Agenzia nazionale per le nuove tecnologie, l’energia e lo sviluppo economico sostenibile (ENEA), 40129 Bologna, Italy

^†Present address: School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JZ, United Kingdom.
^‡Present address: Institute for Nuclear Waste Disposal, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Campus North, 76021 Karlsruhe, Germany.
^*Corresponding author. anton.wallner@anu.edu.au

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Vol. 112, Iss. 19 — 16 May 2014

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Physical Review Letters

Novel Method to Study Neutron Capture of U235 and U238 Simultaneously at keV Energies

A. Wallner, T. Belgya, M. Bichler, K. Buczak, I. Dillmann, F. Käppeler, C. Lederer, A. Mengoni, F. Quinto, P. Steier, and L. Szentmiklosi

Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 192501 – Published 14 May 2014

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Novel Method to Study Neutron Capture of ${}^{235}U$ and ${}^{238}U$ Simultaneously at keV Energies