Benchmarking the Surrogate Ratio Method Using ^234U(α,α'f)/^236U(α,α'f)
Abstract
The Surrogate Ratio Method [1] is expected to demonstrate less sensitivity to differences in spin between the neutron-induced and surrogate reactions than the absolute surrogate method. The first ratio method experiment showed that the ^237U/^239U fission probability ratio was independent of whether the nuclei were formed using neutron-capture or the (d,p) reaction over a wide range of equivalent neutron energy [1]. However, this result had significant (>20%) uncertainty. In order to benchmark the ratio method with greater precision a new experiment was performed at the 88-Inch Cyclotron at LBNL using the Silicon Telescope Array for Reaction Studies (STARS) where the ratio of the ^234U(α,α'f) and ^236U(α,α'f) probabilities were compared to the known ^233U(n,f)/^235U(n,f) cross section ratio. This talk will discuss the surrogate ratio method and the preliminary results of our measurement. This work was sponsored by UC-LLNL under Contract No. W-7405-Eng-48 and Grant Nos. DE-FG-05NA25929, DE-FG52-06NA26206, and DE-FG02-05ER41379.
[1] C. Plettner, et al., Phys. Rev. C 71, (2005) 051602(R)
- Publication:
-
APS Division of Nuclear Physics Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- October 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006APS..DNP.CB005L