Activation measurement of neutron production and transport in a thick lead target and a uranium blanket during 4 GeV deuteron irradiation

Abstract Several simple accelerator-driven system (ADS) setups were irradiated by relativistic proton and deuteron beams in last years at the Nuclotron synchrotron site of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR) in Dubna, Russia. This paper is dedicated to a 4 GeV deuteron irradiation of a setup called Energy plus Transmutation (E+T), consisting of a lead target, natural uranium blanket, and polyethylene shielding. This paper represents the finalization of data analysis and concludes systematics of the proton and deuteron experiments carried out with the E+T setup. Activation detectors served for monitoring of proton and deuteron beams and for measurements of neutron field distribution in model ADS studies. Products of reactions with thresholds up to 106 MeV as well as non-threshold reactions were observed in the samples. The yields of the produced isotopes were determined using the gamma-ray spectrometry and compared with Monte Carlo simulations performed with the MCNPX transport code.