Cross section measurements of ¹²C(n,X) reactions using a diamond detector at LANSCE

Organic scintillators are commonly used for fast neutron detection at rare isotope facilities for nuclear structure studies, such as MoNA at FRIB. The interactions of neutrons within the scintillator can be grouped into three primary categories: elastic scattering on hydrogen, elastic scattering on carbon, and inelastic scattering on carbon. The carbon interactions are less understood, since carbon elastic scattering produces very little light in the detector, often below threshold, and because many of the inelastic reaction channels have not been studied, in particular for neutron kinetic energies above 20 MeV. This introduces uncertainty into neutron position reconstruction in experiments in which these detectors are used. To address this uncertainty, an experiment was conducted at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center (LANSCE) using two spectroscopic diamond detectors. New cross-section measurements were performed for ¹²C(n,p₂), ¹²C(n,p₃), ¹²C(n,d₁), and ¹²C(n,d₂), following up on the cross sections for ¹²C(n,α), ¹²C(n,p₀), ¹²C(n,p₁), and ¹²C(n,d₀), which were recently published from this experiment. These measurements extend the empirically derived cross-section libraries to higher energies (20-55 MeV). These cross sections have been implemented in the simulation code MENATE_R, improving the simulation’s agreement with experimental data.