Results of the IAEA benchmark of spallation models and implication on source design

Spallation reactions play an important role in a wide domain of accelerator applications. The simulation tools developed for these domains are high-energy transport codes in which nuclear model codes are used to compute the production yields and characteristics of all the particles and nuclei generated in these reactions. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) organised recently a benchmark of the spallation models developed by different groups in the world. The objectives were: 1) to assess the prediction capabilities of the spallation models used or that could be used in high-energy transport codes in the different mass and energy regions or for the different exit channels, 2) to understand the reason for the success or deficiency of the models so that some consensus on the most appropriate physics ingredients of the models could be reached. Results and conclusions of this benchmark are presented and implications on spallation source design and uncertainty assessment are discussed.