Eur. Phys. J. A (2014) 50: 55
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2014-14055-4

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Study on the keV neutron capture reaction in ⁵⁶Fe and ⁵⁷Fe

¹ International Research Center for Nuclei and Particles in the Cosmos, Beihang University, 100191, Beijing, China
² School of Physics and Nuclear Energy Engineering, Beihang University, 100191, Beijing, China
³ Department of Physics, Kyungpook National University, 702-701, Daegu, Korea
⁴ Department of Physics, Dong-A University, 604-714, Busan, Korea
⁵ Research Center, Dong-nam Inst. of Radiological & Medical Sciences, 619-953, Busan, Korea
⁶ Research Laboratory for Nuclear Reactors, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 152-8550, Tokyo, Japan

^* e-mail: tfwang@buaa.edu.cn

Received: 27 November 2013
Accepted: 13 February 2014
Published online: 11 March 2014

Abstract

The neutron capture cross-sections and the radiative capture gamma-ray spectra from the broad resonances of ⁵⁶Fe and ⁵⁷Fe in the neutron energy range from 10 to 90keV and 550keV have been measured with an anti-Compton NaI(Tl) detector. Pulsed keV neutrons were produced from the ⁷Li ⁷Be reaction by bombarding the lithium target with the 1.5ns bunched proton beam from the 3MV Pelletron accelerator. The incident neutron spectrum on a capture sample was measured by means of a time-of-flight (TOF) method with a ⁶Li -glass detector. The number of weighted capture counts of the iron or gold sample was obtained by applying a pulse height weighting technique to the corresponding capture gamma-ray pulse height spectrum. The neutron capture gamma-ray spectra were obtained by unfolding the observed capture gamma-ray pulse height spectra. To achieve further understanding on the mechanism of neutron radiative capture reaction and study on physics models, theoretical calculations of the -ray spectra for ⁵⁶Fe and ⁵⁷Fe with the POD program have been performed by applying the Hauser-Feshbach statistical model. The dominant ingredients to perform the statistical calculation were the Optical Model Potential (OMP), the level densities described by the Mengoni-Nakajima approach, and the -ray transmission coefficients described by -ray strength functions. The comparison of the theoretical calculations, performed only for the 550keV point, show a good agreement with the present experimental results.