New high-resolution measurement of 56Fe(n,γ) cross-section at CERN’s n_TOF facility.

Jun 30, 2026, 11:50 AM
20m

Speaker

Aparna Basavaraja Allannavar (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES))

Description

The neutron capture cross-section of Fe-56 is important for many applications. In nuclear technology Fe is a fundamental structural material. Thus, all its neutron interaction probabilities are important for calculations for reactor design, criticality benchmarks as well as shielding. In stellar nucleosynthesis, it is the seed of the s-process, determining the neutron to seed ratio, strongly affecting the s-process production up to Sr.
In the past decades, measurement of Fe-56(n, gamma) cross-section has been carried out at facilities across the world in various energy ranges. The latest Fe-56 evaluations like INDEN principally rely on data that is several decades old.
We present a new measurement conducted at the Experimental Area 1 (EAR1) of the neutron Time-of-Flight experiment, n_TOF, located at CERN. n_TOF is dedicated to the measurement of neutron reaction cross-sections by the time-of-flight technique. EAR1 with its 185 m flight path, offers a high particle luminosity, low background, and very high resolution in neutron energy.
Combined with the extremely low neutron sensitivity of its custom-made liquid scintillation detection system, the aim of this measurement is to make available to the nuclear data community the most accurate and precise measurement of the said cross-section in the neutron energy range up to the inelastic threshold (~850 keV), with an emphasis on the broad s-wave resonance at 28 keV, which has been specifically challenging to measure in the past.

Session Microscopic and Integral Measurements

Authors

Aparna Basavaraja Allannavar (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES)) Dr Adrià Casanovas-Hoste (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES))

Co-authors

Dr Cesar Domingo-Pardo (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Dr Francisco Calviño (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES)) Dr Guillem Cortès-Rossell (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES)) Dr Pablo Pérez-Maroto (Universitat Politecnica Catalunya (ES)) Dr Carlos Paradela (European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) (Belgium)) Dr Alexandru Negret (Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Romania) Dr Marian Boromiza (Horia Hulubei National Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering, Romania) Dr Jorge Lerendegui-Marco (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Dr Javier Balibrea-Correa (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Mr Bernardo Gameiro (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Mr Gabriel de la Fuente Rosales (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Dr Ariel Tarifeño-Saldivia (Instituto de Física Corpuscular (CSIC-Universitat de Valencia), Spain) Dr Victor Alcayne (CIEMAT, Spain) Dr Daniel Cano-Ott (CIEMAT, Spain) Dr Emilio Mendoza (CIEMAT, Spain) Dr Carlos Guerrero (Universidad de Sevilla, Spain) Dr Francisco Garcı́a-Infantes (University of Edinburgh, UK)

Presentation materials