Measurement of Gamma-ray Yield from Thick Carbon Target Irradiated by 5 and 9 MeV Deuterons

Abstract

Background: The design of deuteron accelerator neutron source facilities requires reliable yield estimation of gamma-rays as well as neutrons from deuteron-induced reactions. We have so foar measured systematically double-differential thick target neutron yields (DDTTNYs) for carbon, aluminum, titanium, copper, niobium, and SUS304 targets. In the neutron data analysis, the events of gamma-rays taken simultaneously were treated as backgrounds. In the present work, we have re-analyzed the experimental data for a thick carbon target with particular attention to gamma-ray events. Materials and Methods: Double-differential thick target gamma-ray yields from carbon irradiated by 5 and 9 MeV deuterons were measured using an NE213 liquid organic scintillator at the Kyushu University Tandem accelerator Laboratory. The gamma-ray energy spectra were obtained by an unfolding method using FORIST code. The response functions of the NE213 detector were calculated by EGS5 incorporated in PHITS code. Results and Discussion: The measured gamma-ray spectra show some pronounced peaks corresponding to gamma-ray transitions between discrete levels in residual nuclei, and the measured angular distributions are almost isotropic for both the incident energies. Conclusion: PHITS calculations using INCL, GEM, and EBITEM models reproduce the spectral shapes and the angular distributions generally well, although they underestimate the absolute gamma-ray yields by about 20%.