https://doi.org/10.1140/epja/s10050-026-01803-w
Regular Article - Experimental Physics
Influence of secondary neutrons on alpha-particle induced reaction cross section measurement below the Coulomb barrier
1
Nuclear Data Section, Division of Physical and Chemical Sciences, Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, International Atomic Energy Agency, 1400, Wien, Austria
2
Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Osaka, 565-0871, Suita, Japan
3
Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science, RIKEN, 351-0198, Wako, Japan
4
High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK), Oho, 305-0801, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
5
The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), 240-0193, Hayama, Kanagawa, Japan
6
Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, 060-0810, Sapporo, Japan
7
Graduate School of Biomedical Science and Engineering, Hokkaido University, 060-8638, Sapporo, Japan
8
Global Center for Biomedical Science and Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Hokkaido University, 060-8648, Sapporo, Japan
a
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b
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Received:
17
November
2025
Accepted:
26
January
2026
Published online:
16
March
2026
Abstract
The influence of the secondary neutrons on measurements of alpha-particle activation cross sections below the Coulomb barrier was studied for the 
Pt(
,x)
Pt reaction. We characterized the secondary neutron field by using the particle transport simulation code PHITS, and estimated the Pt(n,x)Pt yields by using the characterized neutron spectra and the Pt(n,x)Pt cross sections in the JENDL-5/A library. We confirmed that the unexpectedly high Pt(,x)Pt cross sections below the Coulomb barrier measured by us are explained well by the Pt(n,x)Pt reaction induced by the secondary neutrons. This indicates that the secondary neutron effect is sometimes not negligible even in low energy charged-particle activation cross section measurements. We also studied the influence of the secondary light charged particles by the same approach, and confirmed that their influence is negligible.
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Communicated by Takashi Nakamura.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2026
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
