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Title: Measurement of the B 10 ( α , n 0 ) 13 N cross section for 2.2 < E α < 4.9 MeV and its application as a diagnostic at the National Ignition Facility

Journal Article · · Physical Review C

We present that the National Ignition Facility (NIF) provides the opportunity to study nuclear reactions under controlled conditions at high temperatures and pressures at a level never before achieved. However, the timescale of the deuterium-tritium (DT) implosion is only a few nanoseconds, making data collection and diagnostics very challenging. One method that has been proposed for obtaining additional information about the conditions of the implosion 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 as it produces a radioactive reactant product with a convenient half-life of ≈10 min. Although this reaction has several advantages for the application at hand, it has not seen much study in the present literature, resulting in large uncertainties in the cross section. Furthermore, for the current application, the cross section must be well characterized. With this motivation, the 10B(α,n)13N cross section has been remeasured for 2.2 < Eα < 4.9MeV with the angle-integrated ground-state cross section reported for the first time. Lastly, 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.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Nuclear Physics (NP); USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC52-07NA27344; NA0002132
OSTI ID:
1561661
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1560314
Journal Information:
Physical Review C, Vol. 100, Issue 3; ISSN 2469-9985
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 3 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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