The Neutrons for Science Facility at SPIRAL-2.

The neutrons for science (NFS) facility is a component of SPIRAL-2, the new superconducting linear accelerator built at GANIL in Caen (France). The proton and deuteron beams delivered by the accelerator will allow producing intense neutron fields in the 100 keV-40 MeV energy range. Continuous and quasi-mono-kinetic energy spectra, respectively, will be available at NFS, produced by the interaction of a deuteron beam on a thick Be converter and by the 7Li(p,n) reaction on thin converter. The pulsed neutron beam, with a flux up to two orders of magnitude higher than those of other existing time-of-flight facilities, will open new opportunities of experiments in fundamental research as well as in nuclear data measurements. In addition to the neutron beam, irradiation stations for neutron-, proton- and deuteron-induced reactions will be available for cross-sections measurements and for the irradiation of electronic devices or biological cells. NFS, whose first experiment is foreseen in 2018, will be a very powerful tool for physics, fundamental research as well as applications like the transmutation of nuclear waste, design of future fission and fusion reactors, nuclear medicine or test and development of new detectors.

Anomalies in the Charge Yields of Fission Fragments from the

Fast-neutron-induced fission of ^{238}U at an energy just above the fission threshold is studied with a novel technique which involves the coupling of a high-efficiency γ-ray spectrometer (MINIBALL) to an inverse-kinematics neutron source (LICORNE) to extract charge yields of fission fragments via γ-γ coincidence spectroscopy. Experimental data and fission models are compared and found to be in reasonable agreement for many nuclei; however, significant discrepancies of up to 600% are observed, particularly for isotopes of Sn and Mo. This indicates that these models significantly overestimate the standard 1 fission mode and suggests that spherical shell effects in the nascent fission fragments are less important for low-energy fast-neutron-induced fission than for thermal neutron-induced fission. This has consequences for understanding and modeling the fission process, for experimental nuclear structure studies of the most neutron-rich nuclei, for future energy applications (e.g., Generation IV reactors which use fast-neutron spectra), and for the reactor antineutrino anomaly.

Identification of a shape isomer in 235U.

The shape isomer in 235U has been searched for in a neutron-induced fission experiment on 234U, which was performed at the isomer spectrometer NEPTUNE of the EC-JRC IRMM. A neutron source, with a tunable pulse frequency in the Hz to kHz range and its individually adjustable neutron pulse width in connection with an appropriate detector system turned out to be the ideal instrument to perform an isomer search, when decay half-lives above 100 micros are expected. From the delayed fission events observed for two different NEPTUNE settings and at mean incident neutron energies En=0.95 and 1.27 MeV the isomeric fission half-life could be determined to be T1/2=(3.6+/-1.8) ms. The corresponding cross section was determined to sigmaif=(10+/-8) microb. With these results an experimental confirmation for the existence of a superdeformed shape isomer in odd-uranium isotopes is given for the first time.

Neutron-induced fission cross section of 233Pa between 1.0 and 3.0 MeV.

The energy dependent neutron-induced fission cross section of 233Pa has for the first time been measured directly with monoenergetic neutrons. This nuclide is an important intermediary in a thorium based fuel cycle, and its fission cross section is a key parameter in the modeling of future advanced fuel and reactor concepts. A first experiment resulted in four cross section values between 1.0 and 3.0 MeV, establishing a fission threshold in excess of 1 MeV. Significant discrepancies were found with a previous indirect experimental determination and with model estimates.