Measurements of short-lived fission product yields from photofission of 238U using 13.0 MeV monoenergetic photons
Publication
, Journal Article
Tsorxe, I; Finch, SW; Howell, CR; Krishichayan; Ramirez, APD; Silano, JA; Tonchev, AP; Tornow, W
Published in: Physical Review C
Photon-induced fission product yield (FPY) measurements were conducted on the isotope 238U. Fission was induced using Eγ = 13.0 MeV monoenergetic photons produced by the Triangle Universities Nuclear Laboratory’s High Intensity γ-ray Source facility. Short-lived FPYs were measured by performing cyclic activation of the sample using a rapid target transfer system. Following activation, the 238U target was rapidly (0.4 s) transferred to a counting station consisting of two well-shielded high-purity germanium detectors. The irradiation-counting cycle was repeated until the summed data had sufficient statistical accuracy. Twenty-eight unique fission products with half-lives ranging from 1 to 450 s were identified, and their cumulative FPYs were determined. The results are compared with previous independent FPY measurements using inverse kinematics. Good agreement between the datasets is found despite the different excitation energy distributions of the fissioning nucleus in the experiments.
