Reliable cross sections of partial photoneutron reactions on 188,189Os isotopes free of neutron multiplicity sorting problems

Abstract

Experimental data on the cross sections of partial photoneutron reactions, obtained for 188,189Os isotopes using quasimonoenergetic annihilation photon beams and neutron multiplicity sorting method, are analyzed. Using special criteria (transition multiplicity functions F i = σ(γ, in)/σ(γ, xn), the ratios of the cross section of the corresponding partial reaction to the total neutron yield reaction’s cross section σ(γ, xn) = σ(γ, 1n)+ 2σ(γ, 2n) + 3σ(γ, 3n) free of the problems associated with experimental neutron multiplicity sorting), it is demonstrated that the data contain significant systematic errors. New data are evaluated for cross sections of partial photoneutron reactions (γ, 1n), (γ, 2n), (γ, 3n) and total photoneutron reaction (γ, sn) for 188,189Os isotopes within an experimental-theoretical approach proposed earlier. It is shown that the significant systematic errors in the experimental cross sections of partial reactions can be attributed to the ambiguity of the relation between the photoneutrons’ multiplicity and their kinetic energy.