Determination of the Pa-233(n, gamma) capture cross section up to neutron energies of 1 MeV using the transfer reaction Th-232(He-3, P)Pa-234

摘要

The gamma-ray emission probability distribution of Pa-234* has been measured between 5.2 and 6.2 MeV excitation energy using the transfer reaction Th-232(He-3,p)Pa-234* at an incident He-3 energy of 24 MeV. The experimental set-up is made of four liquid scintillator C6D6 detectors and four Si telescopes arranged to detect gamma rays and charged particles in coincidence. In order to determine the total number of gamma-ray cascades in a given nucleus, the raw experimental detected gamma-ray events have to be corrected by the weighting function technique. This weighting requires complete knowledge of the efficiency and response functions for the C6D6 detector set-up and surroundings. These have been determined experimentally using gamma-ray sources, inelastic scattering reactions and transfer reactions on light nuclei. Simulations which reproduce successfully the detector response and efficiency are presented.