Producing and Moderating Neutrons for Radioactive Nuclei Neutron Captures

Neutron captures by radioactive nuclei are an important mechanism for the stellar production of heavier isotopes. This project works towards replicating such reactions in a laboratory setting through a test setup which produces neutrons inside a cube of graphite moderator. Gold wires are used to detect where neutrons would hit a radioactive ion beam. From four runs with different energy proton beams producing neutrons and different moderator arrangements we found that yield increases with proton beam energy and decreases when only half the moderator cube is used. Combined with future work comparing these results to simulations these results allow continued development of a full apparatus for replicating radioactive nuclei neutron captures.