Abstract
Because of their short lifetime, free neutrons do not occur in nature and must be artificially produced. A simple method consists of separating them from nuclei in which they are particularly loosely bound. There is a variety of reactions which lead to neutron production. In such reactions compound nuclei excited1 with the sum of the binding energy and the kinetic energy (in the center-of-mass system) of the projectiles first are formed by bombardment of target nuclei with α-particles, protons, deuterons, or γ-rays. If the excitation energy is larger than the binding energy of the “last neutron ” in the compound nucleus, then a neutron is very likely to be emitted. The remaining excitation energy is distributed as kinetic energy between the neutron and the residual nucleus. The residual nucleus can remain excited and later return to the ground state by γ-emission.
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Chapter 2: References
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Beckurts, K.H., Wirtz, K. (1964). Neutron Sources. In: Neutron Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87614-1_2
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