Study of the Ne(n, p)F reaction

Abstract

The Ne(n, p)F reaction is studied at (14.1 ± 0.1) MeV neutron energy using natural neon gas as target and nuclear emulsion as detector. Hydrogen gas is used as standard and the cross-section for the Ne(n, p)F reaction is determined by comparison as (142 ± 28) mb. The angular distributions of protons from hydrogen as well as neon gas targets are given. The angular distribution in the case of hydrogen agrees with known results; in the case of neon, the angular distribution is symmetric around 90° c.m. The neon angular distribution fits well with a 2nd-order Legendre polynomial, 1 +a2P2(cos ϑ) witha2=1.35 ± 0.2. Assuming the energy distribution to be Maxwellian, the temperature of the residual nucleus is determined asT=(1.48 ± 0.20) MeV and the level density parametera=(3.96 ± 0.50) MeV−1 from the observed proton energy distribution in the case of neon; from these, it is concluded that the Ne(n, p)F reaction is essentially a compound-nucleus reaction at this energy. Usinga2=1.35 ± 0.2, the spin cut-off parameterσ=1.10 and moment od inertia ℐ=0.3ℐrigid are obtained.