Light charged particle production in 96 MeV neutron-induced reactions with oxygen

Abstract

© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Licence. In recent years, an increasing number of applications involving fast neutrons have been developed or are under consideration, e.g., radiation treatment of cancer, neutron dosimetry at commercial aircraft altitudes, soft-error effects in computer memories, accelerator-driven transmutation of nuclear waste and energy production. Data on light-ion production in light nuclei such as carbon, nitrogen and oxygen are particularly important in calculations of dose distributions in human tissue for radiation therapy at neutron beams, and for dosimetry of high energy neutrons produced by high-energy cosmic radiation interacting with nuclei (nitrogen and oxygen) in the atmosphere. When studying neutron dose effects in radiation therapy and at high altitude, it is especially important to consider oxygen, because it is the dominant element (65% by weight) in average human tissue. In this work, we present experimental double-differential cross sections of inclusive light-ion (p, d, t, 3He and a) production in oxygen, induced by 96 MeV neutrons. Spectra were measured at 8 laboratory angles: 20°, 40°, 60°, 80°, 100°, 120°, 140° and 160°. Measurements were performed at The Svedberg Laboratory (TSL), Uppsala, using the dedicated MEDLEY experimental setup. Deduced energy-differential and production cross sections are reported as well. Experimental cross sections are compared to theoretical reaction model calculations and existing experimental data in the literature.