Abstract
There is currently a big effort put into the operation and construction of world class neutron scattering facilities (SNS and SNS-TS2 in the US, J-PARC in Japan, ESS in Europe, CSS in China, PIK in Russia). On the other hand, there exists a network of smaller neutron scattering facilities which play a key role in creating a large neutron scattering community who is able to efficiently use the existing facilities. With the foreseen closure of the ageing nuclear research reactors, especially in Europe, there is a risk of seeing a shrinking of the community able to use efficiently the world class facilities. There is thus a reflection being conducted in several countries for the replacement of smaller research reactors with low energy accelerator based sources. We consider here a reference design for a compact neutron source based on existing accelerator components. We estimate the performances of various types of neutron scattering instruments built around such a source. The results suggest that nowadays state of the art neutron scattering experiments could be successfully performed on such a compact source and that it is thus a viable replacement solution for neutron research reactors.
Highlights
As soon as neutron reactors were operating they have been used for neutron scattering experiments
There are currently about 50 nuclear research reactors operating across the world who are performing neutron scattering experiments [1]
During the 1980’, a new type of neutron facilities based on the spallation reaction were developed. This led to the creation of 3 new facilities (IPNS [2], Los Alamos Neutron Science Center [3] and ISIS [4]) which were running a user program
Summary
As soon as neutron reactors were operating they have been used for neutron scattering experiments. There are currently about 50 nuclear research reactors operating across the world who are performing neutron scattering experiments [1]. ESS [7] which can be considered as a third generation spallation source is currently being built in Europe These last sources are very powerful and are able to replace or overtake nuclear reactors in terms of performances for neutron scattering. A UCANS network gathering these groups has been created [16] In this communication we consider the design of a compact source based on existing components (proton source, accelerator, target, moderator, neutron optics) and evaluate the performances of a wide range of neutron scattering instruments which could operate on such a source. We focus mainly on elastic scattering instruments since the flux requirements are less stringent and the modelling of elastic instruments is significantly simpler than inelastic instruments
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