Neutron-induced fission cross section of ²³⁷Np in the keV to MeV range at the CERN n_TOF facility

Abstract

The neutron-induced fission cross section of ²³⁷Np was experimentally determined at the high-resolution and high-intensity facility n_TOF, at CERN, in the energy range 100 keV to 9 MeV, using the ²³⁵U(n,f) and ²³⁸U(n,f) cross section standards below and above 2 MeV, respectively. A fast ionization chamber was used in order to detect the fission fragments from the reactions and the targets were characterized as far as their mass and homogeneity are concerned by means of α spectroscopy and Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy respectively. Theoretical calculations within the Hauser-Feshbach formalism have been performed, employing the empire code, and the model parameters were tuned in order to successfully reproduce the experimental fission cross-sectional data and simultaneously all the competing reaction channels.