Neutron spallation measurements and impacts on low-background experiments

Aguayo, E.; Kouzes, Richard T.; Siciliano, Edward R.

doi:10.1103/physrevc.90.034607

“…20 In Ref. 21, the capabilities of GEANT4 and MCNPX to simulate neutron spallation were studied; in particular, the neutron multiplicity predicted was compared with measurements finding some discrepancies for low density materials. In Ref.…”

Section: Calculation Toolsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmogenic activation of materials

Cebrián¹

2013

AIP Conference Proceedings

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Experiments looking for rare events like the direct detection of dark matter particles, neutrino interactions or the nuclear double beta decay are operated deep underground to suppress the effect of cosmic rays. But the production of radioactive isotopes in materials due to previous exposure to cosmic rays is an hazard when ultra-low background conditions are required. In this context, the generation of long-lived products by cosmic nucleons has been studied for many detector media and for other materials commonly used. Here, the main results obtained on the quantification of activation yields on the Earth's surface will be summarized, considering both measurements and calculations following different approaches. The isotope production cross sections and the cosmic ray spectrum are the two main ingredients when calculating this cosmogenic activation; the different alternatives for implementing them will be discussed. Activation that can take place deep underground mainly due to cosmic muons will be briefly commented too. Presently, the experimental results for the cosmogenic production of radioisotopes are scarce and discrepancies between different calculations are important in many cases, but the increasing interest on this background source which is becoming more and more relevant can help to change this situation.

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Passive, non-intrusive assay of depleted uranium

Parker

¹

,

Beaumont

²

,

Joyce

³

2019

Journal of Hazardous Materials

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Cosmogenic activation of materials

Cebrián

¹

2017

Int. J. Mod. Phys. A

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Experiments looking for rare events like the direct detection of dark matter particles, neutrino interactions or the nuclear double beta decay are operated deep underground to suppress the effect of cosmic rays. But the production of radioactive isotopes in materials due to previous exposure to cosmic rays is an hazard when ultra-low background conditions are required. In this context, the generation of long-lived products by cosmic nucleons has been studied for many detector media and for other materials commonly used. Here, the main results obtained on the quantification of activation yields on the Earth's surface will be summarized, considering both measurements and calculations following different approaches. The isotope production cross sections and the cosmic ray spectrum are the two main ingredients when calculating this cosmogenic activation; the different alternatives for implementing them will be discussed. Activation that can take place deep underground mainly due to cosmic muons will be briefly commented too. Presently, the experimental results for the cosmogenic production of radioisotopes are scarce and discrepancies between different calculations are important in many cases, but the increasing interest on this background source which is becoming more and more relevant can help to change this situation.

show abstract

Neutron spallation measurements and impacts on low-background experiments

Cited by 3 publications

References 27 publications

Cosmogenic activation of materials

Cosmogenic activation of materials

Passive, non-intrusive assay of depleted uranium

Cosmogenic activation of materials

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