Elastic scattering and polarization of fast neutrons by liquid deuterium and tritium

• Published in: Annals of physics 1972-01, Vol.74 (1), p.250-299
• Main Authors: Seagrave, J.D., Hopkins, J.C., Dixon, D.R., Keaton, P.W., Kerr, E.C., Niiler, A., Sherman, R.H., Walter, R.K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0003-4916; 1096-035X
• DOI: 10.1016/0003-4916(72)90263-1

One-mole samples of all three hydrogen isotopes in liquid from have been employed to obtain complete angular distributions of the absolute differential cross sections for n-D scattering at neutron energies of 5.6, 7.0, 8.0, 9.0, 18.55, 20.5, and 23.0 MeV, for n-T scattering at 6.0, 9.0, 18.0, 19.5, 21.0, and 23.0 MeV, and for n-T polarization at 22.1 MeV. Time-of-flight techniques were used with the Mobley beam-compression system at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory vertical Van de Graaff accelerator. Neutrons were detected in large liquid scintillators in collimators heavily shielded with copper, tungsten, and polyethylene. Electronic discrimination against gamma rays was applied, and the raw data and preliminary statistical reduction were handled on line by an SDS-930 computer. Comparison is made with the limited amount of neutron cross-section data previously available, with the more extensive recent measurements of the charge-conjugate systems p-D and p- 3He, and with various calculations and phase-shift representations. The differences between the deuterium total and integral elastic cross section are smaller than previous extrapolation of nonelastic cross sections below 14 MeV.