Speaker
Description
A new experimental area, the NEAR Station, has recently been setup at the n_TOF facility at CERN. It is located at ~3 m distance from the spallation target, just outside the target-moderator shielding wall [1]. The main purpose of the new experimental area is to exploit the extremely high neutron flux in the vicinity of the spallation target to perform irradiation and activation measurements on short-lived radioactive isotopes or on small mass samples, of interest for Nuclear Astrophysics. The use of a suitable moderator and of filters of different thickness, is currently investigated, as is expected to produce Maxwellian-like neutron spectra of different temperatures, enabling challenging measurements of Maxwellian Averaged Cross Sections for nuclear astrophysics and other application purposes. Additionally, the extremely high intensity of the neutron beam is very convenient for measurements related to technological applications, such as material and fusion-technology related studies [2].
Following the completion of the NEAR Station [1], an extensive campaign for its commissioning has been undertaken, aiming at determining the spectral features of the neutron beam. The measurements rely on the use of the multi-foil activation method, as well as of a thermalization detector based on the activation of gold foils at different depths inside a moderator along the neutron beam direction (see contribution to this conference [3]).
In this presentation, the main characteristics of the newly built NEAR Station will be presented, together with Monte Carlo simulations of the moderator/filter assembly and of the foreseen physics program. Finally, the first results of the commissioning campaign will be reported.
References
[1] A.-P. Bernardes, et al., Design, construction, operation and first experimental results of the NEAR station at the n_TOF Facility, submitted to ND2022
[2] Mengoni, A. et al. (The n_TOF Collaboration), The new n_TOF NEAR station, Reports
No. CERN-INTC-2020-073 and No. INTC-I-222, CERN, Geneva, 2020,
https://cds.cern.ch/record/2737308
[3] P. Perez-Maroto et al., ANTILoPE: A NeuTron multi-foIL sPEctrometer for measuring neutron energy distributions up hundreds of MeV, submitted to ND2022