The absolute surrogate technique and the Surrogate Ratio Method (SRM) were used to deduce the 236U(n,f) cross section over an equivalent neutron energy range of 0.1 to 20 MeV for the absolute measurement and 0.8 to 20 MeV for the relative measurement. A 42 MeV 3He2+ beam from the 88--Inch Cyclotron at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was used to perform a (3He,alpha) pickup reaction on targets of 235U (Jpi=7/2 --) and 238U (Jpi=0+) and the fission decay probabilities were determined. The 235U( 3He,alphaf) and 238U(3He,alphaf) reactions were surrogates for 233U(n,f) and 236U(n,f), respectively. Using the absolute surrogate technique, the experimentally determined 238U(3He,alpha) fission probability was multiplied by a calculated neutron absorption cross section to obtain the 236 U(n,f) cross section. Using the SRM, a ratio of the experimentally determined fission probabilities, 238U(3He,alphaf) to 235U(3He,alphaf), was extracted and multiplied by the evaluated 233U(n,f) cross section to obtain the 236U(n,f) cross section. Neither the absolute surrogate nor the SRM used in this case explicitly accounted for Jpi-dependence of the fission probabilities.;The cross sections extracted using the Surrogate Method were compared to directly measured cross sections and theoretical predictions. The absolute surrogate 236U(n,f) cross section trended well with the evaluated nuclear data below 3.3 MeV, but was beset with target contamination above this energy, whereas the SRM result agreed with the evaluated nuclear data to within 10% at neutron energies from 3.5 to 20 MeV and exhibited significant deviations in the low energy regime. The deduced surrogate 236U(n,f) cross section was determined as a function of the angle of the alpha particle ejectile in the direct reaction to explore different angular momentum population distributions in the compound nucleus and their effects on the extracted fission probabilities. The 236U(n,f) cross sections extracted using both the absolute surrogate technique and SRM were found to be sensitive to the Jpi-population distributions in the compound nuclei at low energy. That is, the Weisskopf-Ewing approximation was violated and the fission probabilities were found to be dependent upon the total angular momentum, J, and parity, pi, of the populated states. The Surrogate Method is an important tool for extracting cross sections that cannot be measured directly and this work illuminates the limitations of this method when the Weisskopf-Ewing limit is assumed. This marks the first experimentally observed deviation from the Weisskopf-Ewing limit and highlights the need for a comprehensive study of this phenomenon.
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