Search for A=60 fragments from neutron-induced fission with accelerator mass spectrometry

摘要

The high sensitivity of the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) method has been utilized to measure the extremely low yields for super asymmetric neutron-induced fission of uranium. From a high level radioactive waste concentrate (HAWC) of the reprocessing plant WAK in Karlsruhe, Germany, iron has been chemically extracted and investigated by means of AMS for possible Fe-60 from nuclear fission. The fission yield is masked due to the competing 60Fe production via double neutron capture on Fe-58. Therefore, only an upper limit for the A = 60 fission chain yield of 1 x 10(-8)% could be determined. To estimate this branch, the cross section for the Fe-59(n, gamma)Fe-60 reaction has been measured to (6.0 +/- 1.3) barn. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. [References: 10]