Total Cross Section of Deuterium for Neutrons from 0.2 to 22 Mev

Transmission measurements of the total neutron cross section of deuterium have been made with an accuracy of about 2 percent at 29 energies between 0.2 and 22 Mev, using deuterium gas in a cell 1 meter long. The cross section decreases monotonically with increasing energy, and its reciprocal appears to be a linear function of neutron energy over the interval from 1.5 to 22 Mev: $\sigma =14.35\mathrm{}{(E_n+3.6\mathrm{} \mathrm{Mev})}^{-1\mathrm{}} \mathrm{barn}.$