Abstract
In this work, the previously unmeasured Th232(d,5n)Pa229 reaction is reported at deuteron energies of 31.0, 35.2, 41.4, and 49.6 MeV. The irradiation took place at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 88-Inch Cyclotron. The target processing and analysis were performed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The experiment used four thin foils (≈17mg/cm2) of natural thorium metal in a stacked-target configuration, which were irradiated with a deuteron beam (1 μA) for approximately 11 continuous hours. Column chromatography techniques were implemented to directly assay Pa229 and its low intensity γ-ray emissions. The measured peak of the excitation function of Th232(d,5n)Pa229 is 121.9±12.7 mb at Ed=35.2MeV. In addition to Pa229, the production cross sections of the Th232(d,xn)Pa234-x reactions, where x=1, 2, 4, and 6, are also reported and compared to previous measurements. The experimental cross sections were compared with calculated cross sections using several reaction modeling codes including phits, talys, alice, coh, and empire as well as the evaluated nuclear reaction database TENDL.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 024609 |
| Journal | Physical Review C |
| Volume | 108 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2023 American Physical Society.
Funding
This research is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy Isotope Program, managed by the Office of Isotope R&D and Production within the DOE Office of Science. ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle, LLC, under Contracts No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 and No. DE-SC0020140 for the U.S. Department of Energy. This work was carried out under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the U.S. Nuclear Data Program under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The work of N.B. was supported by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (KFAS) under the Research Capacity Building/Scholarship Bridging Program. The publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the U.S. government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this paper, or allow others to do so, for U.S. government purposes.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | DE-AC05-00OR22725, DE-SC0020140 |
| Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | DE-AC02-05CH11231 |
| Office of Isotope R and D and Production | |
| Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences |