On the role of secondary pions in spallation targets

Abstract

We use particle-transport simulations to show that secondary pions play a crucial role for the development of the hadronic cascade and therefore for the production of neutrons and photons from thick spallation targets. In particular, for the n_TOF lead spallation target, irradiated with 20 GeV/c protons, neutral pions are involved in the production of ~90% of the high-energy photons; charged pions participate in ~40% of the integral neutron yield. Nevertheless, photon and neutron yields are shown to be relatively insensitive to large changes of the average pion multiplicity in the individual spallation reactions. We characterize this robustness as a peculiar property of hadronic cascades in thick targets.

17 pages, 14 figures. Submitted to Eur. Phys. J. A

References in corpus (2)

• New potentialities of the Liège intranuclear cascade (INCL) model for reactions induced by nucleons and light charged particles
• Extension of the Liège Intranuclear-Cascade model to reactions induced by light nuclei

Cited by in corpus (4)

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• Constraint of the Nuclear Dissipation Coefficient in Fission of Hypernuclei
• Measurement of neutron production in atmospheric neutrino interactions at Super-Kamiokande
• Cascade Models in Simulation of Extended Heavy Targets Irradiated by Accelerated Proton and Deuteron Beams