Neutron induced reaction cross section of $^{\mathbf {51}}$V with covariance analysis

Abstract

The cross section of the $^{51}$V$\left( {{{n, p}}} \right) ^{51}$Ti reaction was measured at 7.87, 13.05 and 16.98 MeV neutron energies using the activation technique and offline $\gamma$-ray spectrometry. Vanadium targets were activated along with Al monitor foil to measure the cross section relative to the standard $^{27}$Al$\left( {{{n,\alpha }}} \right) ^{24}$Na reference reaction. The quasi-monoenergetic neutron beams were produced via the $^{7}$Li$\left( {{{p, n}}} \right)$ reaction at the 14UD BARC-TIFR Pelletron Facility, Mumbai, India. Statistical nuclear reaction Talys (ver. 1.9) code was used for the theoretical estimations of the $^{51}$V$\left( {{{n, p}}} \right) ^{51}$Ti reaction cross section. Additionally, the effects of different input parameters were considered in present work to reproduction of the experimental data more accurately. The experimental data of the present measurements were discussed and compared with the previous measurements taken from the EXFOR compilation and latest evaluations of the ENDF/B-VIII.0, JENDL/AD-2017 and TENDL-2019 libraries. The covariance method was used to estimate the magnitudes of the uncertainties in the present cross section measurements. Furthermore, the different systematic formulae at 14–15 MeV energies were used to calculate the $\left( {{{n, p}}}\right) \!, \left( {{{n, 2n}}} \right)$ and $\left( {{{n, \alpha }}} \right)$ reactions cross section for structural material vanadium. The calculated cross sections from the formulae were discussed and compared with the available experimental data.