Experimental Assessment of the Performance of a Proposed Lead Slowing‐Down Spectrometer at WNR/PSR

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Abstract
In November 1989, we carried out a measurement of the fission cross section of 247Cm, 250Cf, and 254Es on the Rensselaer Intense Neutron Source (RINS) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). In July 1990, we carried out a second measurement, using the same fission chamber and electronics, in beam geometry at the Los Alamos Neutron Scattering Center (LANSCE) facility. Using the relative count rates observed in the two experiments, and the flux‐enhancement factors determined by the RPI group for a lead slowing‐down spectrometer compared to beam geometry, we can assess the performance of a spectrometer similar to RINS, driven by the Proton Storage Ring (PSR) at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. With such a spectrometer, we find that it is feasible to make measurements with samples of 1 ng for fission 1 μg for capture, and of isotopes with half‐lives of tens of minutes. It is important to note that, while a significant amount of information can be obtained from the low resolution RINS measurement, a definitive determination of average properties, including the level density, requires that the resonance structure be resolved.

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