Eur. Phys. J. A (2021) 57: 125
https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-021-00447-2

Letter to the Editor

Low energy proton induced reactions with weakly bound nuclei for application purposes

¹ INFN Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, via S. Sofia 62, 95125, Catania, Italy
² Department of Physics and HINP, The University of Ioannina, 45110, Ioannina, Greece

^c apakou@uoi.gr

Received: 18 January 2021
Accepted: 29 March 2021
Published online: 9 April 2021

Abstract

Proton induced charge exchange reactions have been proposed as the mean for producing neutron beams for low energy Compact Accelerator-driven Neutron Sources. In view of our new measurements on proton induced reactions at low energies, and a re-new interest for building such neutron sources, we revise here critically cross sections of all reaction products at 3 and 5 MeV on ${}^7$Li and ${}^9$Be targets. We find that the ENDF/B-VIII.0 library is the most appropriate to be used for neutron rate estimation via the (p, n) channel. Further on, we suggest the breakup mechanism on a ${}^9$Be target as a substantial source of neutron production and the breakup mechanism on a ${}^7$Li target as a source of triton production, the last to be taken into account for radioprotection purposes.