Verification of the Cd-ratio method in Am using JENDL-4.0

Mizuyama, Kazuhito; Iwamoto, Nobuyuki  ; Iwamoto, Osamu  

The management of the nuclear waste problem requires the high precision of the neutron capture cross section for minor actinides. One of the important reaction is the neutron capture reaction of Am. However, the thermal neutron capture cross section of Am is not optimized yet. Especially the values of thermal cross sections measured by the activation technique are around 20% bigger than the other methods (TOF, & spectroscopy etc.). In the activation method, the Westcott conventional representation and the Cd-ratio method are used for the analysis of the cross section. However, it may not work well due the special resonance structure of Am. In our study, we verify the Cd-ratio method using the JENDL-4.0, and try to correct the experimental cross section based on our verification of the Cd-ratio method. Consequently we obtained the very close value of the cross section to the JENDL-4.0.