Speaker
Description
Neutron-induced reactions play important roles in understanding a wide variety of natural and man-made environments, from the production of the heavy elements in astrophysical environments, to reaction pathways in nuclear reactors, to influencing the performance of structural materials being considered for future fusion energy sources. Further, they provide a unique probe of the nucleus, allowing reach into regions of relatively high nuclear excitation with very low angular momentum transfer. This has informed our knowledge of nuclear features such as the optical model potential, low-spin nuclear structure, nuclear pairing, and probes of the electromagnetic interaction in the nuclear system.
Because neutrons naturally decay, traditional measurements have focused on producing neutron beams which impinge on relatively large samples of stable or near stable isotopes for study. The Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) provide high-intensity, energy-resolved neutron time-of-flight beams coupled to a wide range of detector arrays to study different reaction properties.
In this overview of measurements at LANSCE, I will focus on recent work with a particular emphasis on advancing the state-of-the art in direct neutron-induced measurements on radioactive isotopes. These measurements have been enable by a combination of new capabilities for rare isotope production, instrument advances allowing use of ever smaller samples, and improvements in the neutron source intensity. These measurements are informing theoretical models for nuclear
reactions with constraints as we move away from the valley of stability, improving predictions in the most challenging scenarios mentioned above.
| Contribution category | Experiment |
|---|---|
| Presenter status | Faculty/Staff |