A comparison of various procedures in photon activation analysis with the same irradiation setup

Abstract

a b s t r a c tA sample of known elemental concentrations was activated in the bremsstrahlung photon beam which was created by a pulsed electron LINAC. Several procedures of photon activation analysis, including those applied with/without reference material and with/without photon flux monitor, were conducted to make a comparison of their precision and accuracy in practice. Experimental results have indicated that: (1) relative procedures usually produce better outcome despite that the absolute measurement is straightforward and eliminate the assistance of reference materials; (2) among relative procedures, the method with internal flux monitor yields higher quality of the analytical results. In the article, the pros and cons of each procedure are discussed as well.

A data-based photonuclear reaction model for GEANT4

“…6. G4 underestimates the photoneutron yields by a factor of $500 because the model cannot reproduce the experimental 9 Be(c, n) 8 Be reaction cross-section as was shown in Fig. 2(a).…”

“…Also the model does not reproduce the low-energy peaks. Such discrepancies may come from the underestimation of the neutron production for the 9 Be(c, n) 8 Be reaction. The neutrons from the 9 Be(c, 2n) 7 Be reaction, which has a threshold energy E th of $20.588 MeV, do not contribute to the neutron production in the E c < $16 MeV region.…”

“…To substantiate the use of G4DPN, benchmark simulations are performed for photoneutron yields from the 9 Be(c, n) 8 Be reaction, where photons are generated from a 8.96 MeV electron beam on a 0.188 cm tantalum target through the bremsstrahlung process. A detailed experimental setup and parameters can be found in Refs.…”

“…Photon-induced neutron productions play important roles in various industrial and scientific fields which include studies of astrophysical c-process [1][2][3], photon activation analysis [4][5][6][7][8], long-lived radioactive nuclear waste transmutation [9][10][11][12][13], radiography and radiotherapy [14][15][16], and boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) [17][18][19]. For radiation protection, it is important to estimate the production of photoneutrons accurately in radiation therapy [20][21][22][23][24].…”

A new equation for activity calculation in pulse irradiation: derivation, simulation, and experimental validation

“…Traditionally, to calculate the activity from pulse irradiation, scientists usually expand the usage of continuous irradiation Equations (1) and (2) into applications of pulse irradiation without too much consideration of details in pulses. Instead of peak flux in the pulse width, they use average particle flux during the whole irradiation period to calculate the final radioactivity [2][3][4][5]. This practice does make sense at the first thought: the repetition rate of pulses is usually relatively high, the irradiation can be regarded as continuous from the point of whole irradiation period, and the half-life of the product nuclides of interest are usually long even comparable to the whole irradiation time.…”