Secondary neutron yields from thick-target GCR accelerator experiments

This work overviews recent experiments conducted at the NASA Space Radiation Laboratory which sought to experimentally verify model predictions of an optimal spacecraft shielding thickness and provide data which can be used to quantify uncertainties in the physics models within the standard particle transport codes which presently, in some places, poorly predict data and whose results can vary significantly from code to code. Now that the multi-year experiment campaign is complete, some of the overarching trends in the data can be studied; though this work only provides a cursory look at these overarching trends. A small set of the neutron yields measured in these experiments are showcased here. The experiment employed two thick targets along a beamline to emulate the walls of a spacecraft being bombarded by galactic cosmic rays. Time-of-flight techniques were used to characterize neutrons produced in the upstream target while a novel pulse height deconvolution methodology was developed and implemented to characterize neutrons produced in the downstream target.