Neutron Capture Cross Section Measurement of Praseodymium in the Energy Region from 0.003 eV to 140 keV

Abstract

The neutron capture cross section of praseodymium (141Pr) has been measured relative to the 10B(n,αγ) standard cross section in the energy region from 0.003 eV to 140 keV by the neutron time-of-flight (TOF) method with a 46-MeV electron linear accelerator (linac) of the Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University (KURRI). An assembly of Bi4Ge3O12 (BGO) scintillators was used for the capture cross section measurement. In addition, the thermal neutron cross section (2,200 m/s value) of the 141Pr(n, γ)142Pr reaction has been also measured by an activation method at the heavy water thermal neutron facility of the Kyoto University Reactor (KUR). The thermal neutron flux was monitored with the 197Au(n, γ)198Au standard cross section. The above TOF measurement has been normalized to the current activation data (11.6±1.3 b) at 0.0253 eV. The evaluated data in JENDL-3.3, ENDF/B-VI, and JEF-2.2 have been in general agreement with the current result, except that the JENDL-3.3 and the JEF-2.2 values are clearly lower than the measurement in the cross section minimum region from about 10 to 500 eV.