Eur. Phys. J. A (2016) 52: 101
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/i2016-16101-7

Regular Article - Experimental Physics

Integral measurement of the ¹²C(n, p)¹²B reaction up to 10 GeV

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
² Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Bari, Italy
³ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Bologna, Italy
⁴ ENEA, Bologna, Italy
⁵ Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe Universität, Frankfurt, Germany
⁶ Uniwersytet Łódzki, Lodz, Poland
⁷ Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique/IN2P3 - IPN, Orsay, France
⁸ Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), Madrid, Spain
⁹ Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
¹⁰ European Commission JRC, Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements, Retieseweg 111, B-2440, Geel, Belgium
¹¹ CEA/Saclay - IRFU, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
¹² University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, UK
¹³ CERN, Geneva, Switzerland
¹⁴ Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
¹⁵ C2TN-Instituto Superior Tecníco, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal
¹⁶ Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain
¹⁷ INFN - Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
¹⁸ National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Athens, Greece
¹⁹ Instituto de Física Corpuscular, CSIC-Universidad de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
²⁰ Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232, Villigen, Switzerland
²¹ Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain
²² Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece
²³ Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Mumbai, India
²⁴ Atominstitut der Österreichischen Universitäten, Technische Universität Wien, Wien, Austria
²⁵ University of York, York, Heslington, UK
²⁶ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institut für Kernphysik, Karlsruhe, Germany
²⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Bologna, Sezione INFN di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
²⁸ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Legnaro, Legnaro, Italy
²⁹ Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Trieste, Italy
³⁰ Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering - IFIN HH, Magurele, Romania
³¹ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia DFA, Università di Catania and INFN-Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, Catania, Italy
³² University of Vienna, Faculty of Physics, Wien, Austria
³³ Centre for Astrophysics Research, School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
³⁴ Department of Physics, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
³⁵ Research School of Physics and Engineering, Australian National University, ACT 0200, Canberra, Australia

^* e-mail: pzugec@phy.hr

Received: 28 September 2015
Revised: 9 February 2016
Accepted: 24 February 2016
Published online: 22 April 2016

Abstract

The integral measurement of the ¹²C(n, p)¹²B reaction was performed at the neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN. The total number of ¹²B nuclei produced per neutron pulse of the n_TOF beam was determined using the activation technique in combination with a time-of-flight technique. The cross section is integrated over the n_TOF neutron energy spectrum from reaction threshold at 13.6MeV to 10GeV. Having been measured up to 1GeV on basis of the ²³⁵U(n, f ) reaction, the neutron energy spectrum above 200MeV has been re-evaluated due to the recent extension of the cross section reference for this particular reaction, which is otherwise considered a standard up to 200MeV. The results from the dedicated GEANT4 simulations have been used to evaluate the neutron flux from 1GeV up to 10GeV. The experimental results related to the ¹²C(n, p)¹²B reaction are compared with the evaluated cross sections from major libraries and with the predictions of different GEANT4 models, which mostly underestimate the ¹²B production. On the contrary, a good reproduction of the integral cross section derived from measurements is obtained with TALYS-1.6 calculations, with optimized parameters.