International Conference on Nuclear Data for Science and Technology 2007
DOI: 10.1051/ndata:07208

Re-evaluating low-energy neutron-deuteron elastic scattering using three-nucleon theory

J.P. Svenne¹, L. Canton², K. Kozier³ and L. Townsend<sup>4

1</sup>  Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manitoba, and Winnipeg Institute for Theoretical Phyiscs, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T 2N2 Canada
²  Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, sezione di Padova e Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Università di Padova, via Marzolo 8, 35131 Padova, Italia
³  Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, Chalk River Laboratories, Chalk River, ON, K0J 1J0 Canada
⁴  Department of Nuclear Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA

luciano.canton@pd.infn.it

Published online: 21 May 2008

Abstract
Using a well-established nucleon-nucleon interaction that fits the NN scattering data (Bonn potential), and the AGS form of three-body theory, we perform precise calculations of low-energy neutron-deuteron scattering. There appear to be problems for this system in the ENDF/B-VI.8 (ENDF/B-VI.5 through VI.8) data library, which persist in the newest version, ENDF/B-VII.0. Supporting experimental data in this energy region are rather old (>25 years), sparse and often inconsistent. Our three-body results at low energies, 50 keV to 10 MeV are compared to the ENDF/B-VII.0 and JENDL-3.3 evaluated angular distributions. The impact of these results on calculated reactivity for various critical systems involving heavy water is shown.

© CEA 2008