Nuclear Studies with Neutron-CaptureγRays

Abstract

Thermal neutron-capture y rays have found applications in a variety of nuclear reaction studies requiring y rays in the energy region up to 11 MeV. The importance of these y-ray sources is that they provide very high intensities, which exceed by two orders of magnitude the intensities per unit energy interval obtainable from other sources. The experiments performed with these sources are reviewed in this article, and the advantages and disadvantages of the method are discussed.

Study of the133Cs(?,n)132Cs reaction

“…In the past, this type of experiment has been impeded by the difficulty in obtaining intense monoenergetic gamma-ray beams of sufficient intensity and of detecting the neutrons with adequate resolution. However, with the improvements in 3He neutron spectrometers [1,2] and the use of neutron capture gamma-rays for monoenergetic photon beams [3] it has now become feasible to extract significant information from photoneutron spectra. In this paper we report the results of an experimental study of the photoneutron spectrum from the 133Cs(•, n)132Cs reaction induced by 9.720 MeV neutron capture gamma-rays in conjunction with a 3He-spectrometer.…”