Measurement of the 35Cl(n, p)35S cross-section at the CERN n$$\_$$TOF facility from subthermal energy to 120 keV

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Abstract The 35 Cl( n , p ) 35 S reaction plays a key role in neutron dosimetry for Boron Neutron Capture Therapy, in the synthesis of the isotope 36 S, whose astrophysical origin remains unresolved, and in the design of next-generation molten-salt reactors. Its relevance has motivated its inclusion in the High Priority Request List (HPRL) of NEA. The goal of this work is to determine the 35 Cl( n , p ) 35 S cross-section from thermal energy to 120 keV for the first time ever in a single measurement, thus reducing systematic uncertainties related to the normalization to the thermal value. This had been a subject of concern in previous evaluations of this reaction. We made use of the Time-of-Flight technique with microMEGAS detectors at Experimental Area 2 (EAR-2) of n_TOF facility at CERN. The 10 B $$(n, \alpha )$$ ( n , α ) 7 Li and 235 U( n , f ) reactions were used as references. Rutherford Back-scattering Spectrometry was performed at Centro Nacional de Aceleradores (CNA) in Sevilla, in order to accurately determine the masses of the irradiated samples. We obtained a thermal cross-section of $$0.470 \pm 0.009$$ 0.470 ± 0.009 barns. The 1/ v energy dependence of the cross-section is observed up to the first resonance at 0.398 keV, the resonances up to 120 keV are analyzed and resonance parameters extracted using SAMMY. Maxwellian Averaged Cross-Section (MACS) was calculated for $$k_B T$$ k B T from 1 to 100 keV, and lower values compared to estimations from ENDF were found, e.g., 1.07 ± 0.20 mb at $$k_BT=30$$ k B T = 30 keV. The thermal cross-section and first two resonances are in agreement with the latest evaluation in ENDF/B-VIII.1, while remarkably lower resonance strengths were found for high energy resonances.

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