Abstract
We present results from direct measurements of the thick-target yield from laboratory incident energies 3 to 5 MeV, performed with the 3HeBF3 Giant Barrel (HeBGB) neutron detector at the Edwards Accelerator Laboratory. Our measurements have a small energy cadence in order to address discrepancies and sparseness of thick-target-yield data sets existing for this energy region. We find general agreement with existing data sets, including yields derived from cross-section data, while resolving a discrepancy between existing thick-target-yield data sets for MeV. However, for MeV, our results are substantially lower than previous thick-target-yield data and somewhat larger than yields calculated from existing cross-section data. Our data complete the energy range needed for estimates of the contribution to neutrino and dark matter detector backgrounds and result in increased viability of as a plasma diagnostic tool at fusion facilities such as the National Ignition Facility.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data Availability Statement
Thick-target yields reported in this work are available as a text file in the Supplemental Material. See the Supplemental Material for a table of our measured yield.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00295639.2022.2118483