Direct neutron spectrum measurement to validate Zr(n,2n) reaction cross-section at 14 MeV

Murata, Isao*; Shiken, Kimiaki*; Kondo, Keitaro; Matsunaka, Masayuki*; Ota, Masayuki*; Miyamaru, Hiroyuki*; Ochiai, Kentaro; Konno, Chikara  ; Nishitani, Takeo

Lithium zirconate, LiZrO, is known as a candidate blanket material in a fusion reactor. According to the independent benchmark studies for zirconium by JAERI, Kyoto University and Osaka University, the neutron spectrum calculations show fairly large overestimation for most evaluated nuclear data libraries. The author's group expects that the overestimation be due to a problem of evaluation for the (n,2n) reaction, because the (n,2n) reaction cross section is not well determined experimentally. In the present study, two neutrons emitted from Zr(n,2n) reaction have been measured directly to reveal the problem. As a result of measurements, the cross section obtained for energies above 1 MeV, which is the lower measurable limit energy, shows a little larger than JENDL-3.3. This is an opposite result to the benchmark analysis. However, an extrapolation for the low energy region by the evaporation spectrum with the nuclear temperature of 1 MeV brought the smaller total (n,2n) reaction cross section than JENDL-3.3, which is comparable to ENDF/B-VI. This result suggests that the discrepancies reported previously might be due to inappropriate evaluation of nuclear temperature.