Speaker
Description
The neutron capture cross section of $^{241}$Am is an important quantity for nuclear energy production and fuel cycle scenarios. Several measurements have been performed in recent years with the aim to reduce uncertainties in evaluated data. Two previous measurements [1,2], performed at the 185 m flight-path station EAR1 of the neutron time-of-flight facility n_TOF at CERN, have permitted to substantially extend the resolved resonance region, but suffered in the near-thermal energy range from the unfavorable signal-to-background ratio resulting from the combination of the high radioactivity of $^{241}$Am and the rather low thermal neutron flux. The here presented $^{241}$Am(n,$\gamma$) measurement, performed with C_{6}D_{6} liquid scintillator gamma detectors at the 20 m flight-path station EAR2, took advantage of the much higher neutron flux. Results for the thermal region and the resonances below 10 eV will be presented and compared with existing data.
[1] K. Fraval et al., Phys. Rev. C 89 (2014)
[2] E. Mendoza et al., Phys. Rev. C 97 (2018)
