Neutron-Induced Light-Ion Production from Iron and Bismuth at 175 MeV

Abstract: Radioactive waste management is one of the key issues in sustainability of nuclear energy production. Geological repositories represent today the most appropriate solution to long-term management of high-level radioactive waste. Strategies such as Partitioning and Transmutation of spent nuclear fuel may offer a positive impact on geological repositories, by reducing the mass of transuranium elements to be disposed and the time scale for their radiotoxicity. In this scenario, Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS) may play a relevant role as dedicated burners towards sustainable nuclear energy.The NEXT project at Uppsala University contributes to a European effort to improve nuclear data knowledge for transmutation, providing the first experimental neutron induced data in the 100 to 200 MeV energy region. This thesis presents measurements of double-differential cross sections for production of light-ions in the interaction of 175 MeV quasi-monoenergetic neutrons with Fe and Bi. Results are compared with model calculations obtained with state-of-the-art nuclear reaction codes; TALYS-1.2, a modified version of JQMD, and MCNP6. Special focus in this work is given to pre-equilibrium emission of composite light-ions. A new energy dependence in the mechanisms described by the Kalbach systematics used in TALYS to account for composite particle emission in the pre-equilibrium stage is proposed. Data show also the need to include multiple pre-equilibrium emission of composite particles, a mechanism now included in TALYS only for protons and neutrons. The JQMD code was recently modified to include a surface coalescence model in the quantum molecular dynamics description of the formation of composite particles. Comparisons of the measured data with results from this modified JQMD code confirm the importance of coalescence mechanisms for the description of the emission spectra of composite particles. Finally, the neutron-induced data are compared with MCNP6 calculations, to contribute to the process of validation and verification of the code.