New Measurements of Thermal Capture γ-rays from Manganese

Existing data on the de-excitation of ⁵⁶Mn from the neutron capture reaction ⁵⁵Mn(n,γ)⁵⁶Mn, needs improvement due to discrepancies in γ-ray transition intensities between libraries. Manganese is an important element for applications of neutron activation, such as neutron interrogation of soil and nuclear forensics. In this talk, I shall discuss new measurements of primary capture γ-rays above 5 MeV from ⁵⁶Mn and compare them to results from GEANT4 simulations using cascade data from DICEBOX and ENSDF. The measurements were performed with two HPGe detectors and with data from experiments conducted at the UMass Lowell Research Reactor.