Measurement of the 10B(?,n0)13N cross section at E? ? 3.6 MeV and its application as a diagnostic at the National Ignition Facilit

Published

September 3, 2019

Author(s)

Q Liu, M Febbraro, R.J. deBoer, A Boeltzig, Y Chen, C Cerjan, M Couder, B Frentz, G Gilardy, J. Gorres, E. A. Henry, E. Lamere, K. T. Macon, K. Manukyan, L. Morales, P. D. O'Malley, S Pain, W. A. Peters, D. Schneider, C. Seymour, R. Toomey, B. Vande Kolk, Jamie Weaver, M. Wiescher

Abstract

The National Ignition Facility provides the opportunity to study nuclear reactions under controlled conditions at high temperatures and pressures at a level never before achieved. However, the time scale of the DT implosion is only a few nanoseconds, making data collection and diagnostics very challenging. One method that has been proposed is to activate a dopant material using the α-particles produced from the DT fuel as a diagnostic. The yield of the activated material can give a measure of the mixing that occurs in the capsule. One of the reactions that has been proposed is 10B(α,n)13N. While this reaction has several advantageous properties for the application at hand, it has not seen much study in the present literature, resulting in large uncertainties in the cross section. Further, for the current application, the cross section must be well characterized. With this motivation, the 10B(α,n)13N cross section has been remeasured in the vicinity of Eα = 3.6 MeV, with the angle integrated ground state cross section reported for the first time. The present results, combined with previous measurements, allow for a determination of the cross section to a significantly higher degree of accuracy and precision than obtained previously, and are shown to be consistent with thick- target measurements. Preliminary calculations are performed to test the feasibility of this reaction as a diagnostic for a NIF implosion.

Citation

Journal of Physical Chemistry C

Volume

100

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.100.034601

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Keywords

high energy physics, neutron depth profiling, cross section

Citation

Liu, Q. , Febbraro, M. , deBoer, R. , Boeltzig, A. , Chen, Y. , Cerjan, C. , Couder, M. , Frentz, B. , Gilardy, G. , Gorres, J. , Henry, E. , Lamere, E. , Macon, K. , Manukyan, K. , Morales, L. , O'Malley, P. , Pain, S. , Peters, W. , Schneider, D. , Seymour, C. , Toomey, R. , Vande Kolk, B. , Weaver, J. and Wiescher, M. (2019), Measurement of the 10B(?,n0)13N cross section at E? ? 3.6 MeV and its application as a diagnostic at the National Ignition Facilit, Journal of Physical Chemistry C, [online], https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevC.100.034601, https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=928100 (Accessed October 17, 2025)