Neutron Nuclear Data Evaluation of Cesium Isotopes for JENDL-4.0

Abstract

For the development of JENDL-4.0, neutron nuclear data for fission product nuclides, ^{133,134,135,136,137}Cs, were revised in the incident neutron energy range from 1 eV to 20MeV by using a coupled-channels optical model (OM), and nuclear reaction models. The OM potential parameters were determined for stable ¹³³Cs to reproduce the experimental data of total and elastic scattering cross sections and angular distributions of elastically scattered neutrons. The present results reasonably reproduce measured data for (n; 2n), (n; p), (n; α), and capture reactions on ¹³³Cs. Important differences between the present results and JENDL-3.3 are found for the capture cross sections of ^134,137Cs. The cross section obtained for ¹³⁷Cs was smaller than that in JENDL-3.3. This result makes the transmutation of medium-lived ¹³⁷Cs increasingly difficult. The production probabilities of metastable states for ^134,138Cs via capture reactions on ^133,137Cs are compared with experimental values. The present result for ^134m Cs production is marginally consistent with measured data. However, a large discrepancy is recognized for ^138m Cs production. The γ-ray emission data were evaluated with available measurements, and newly compiled in JENDL-4.0. Maxwellian-averaged capture cross sections were calculated in the energy range from 1 to 103 keV, and are compared with other derived data.

KEYWORDS:

• cesium
• neutron nuclear data
• fission products
• evaluation
• calculation
• nuclear reaction models
• gamma-ray spectrum
• Maxwellian-averaged cross section
• JENDL-4.0