Open Access
Issue
ND 2007
2007
Article Number 298
Number of page(s) 4
Section Intermediate and high energy models
DOI https://doi.org/10.1051/ndata:07311
Published online 17 June 2008
International Conference on Nuclear Data for Science and Technology 2007
DOI: 10.1051/ndata:07311

Improved model for secondary neutron production in nucleus-nucleus collision at intermediate energies

L.W. Townsend1, S. Sriprisan1 and F.A. Cucinotta2

1  Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville TN 37996-2300, USA
2  NASA Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, TX 77058, USA

isripris@utk.edu

Published online: 21 May 2008

Abstract
In previous work an analytical knockout-ablation coalescence model capable of making quantitative predictions of the neutron spectra from high-energy nucleon-nucleus and nucleus-nucleus collision has been developed. The physics of the knockout-ablation model is similar to that in intranuclear cascade codes using Monte Carlo methods. In the first or knockout stage, the collision between two nuclei results in one or more nucleons being knocked out of the projectile and/or the target nucleus. This results in an excited nucleus (called a prefragment), which is lighter than the original species. This excited prefragment decays to the ground state by emitting one or more nucleons, composites (such as deuterons or alphas) and gammas. This is the ablation (second) stage of the reaction. Significant improvements in model predictions were made previously by incorporating important coalescence effects into the formalism. Coalescence occurs when particles with similar momenta located close together in space recombine to form heavier nuclei, such as deuterons, 3H and 3He. In this work the important effects of alpha particle coalescence are included. The improved theory is described and results for predicted neutron and light ion energy and angular spectra are presented and compared with published measurements of secondary neutron and light ion production for a variety of collision pairs.



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