P, Priyada and Udupi, Ashwini and P.K, Sarkar (2017) Estimation of neutron energy distributions from prompt gamma emissions. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, 871 (1). pp. 83-89. ISSN 0168-9002

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Abstract

A technique of estimating the incident neutron energy distribution from emitted prompt gamma intensities from a system exposed to neutrons is presented. The emitted prompt gamma intensities or the measured photo peaks in a gamma detector are related to the incident neutron energy distribution through a convolution of the response of the system generating the prompt gammas to mono-energetic neutrons. Presently, the system studied is a cylinder of high density polyethylene (HDPE) placed inside another cylinder of borated HDPE (BHDPE) having an outer Pb-cover and exposed to neutrons. The emitted five prompt gamma peaks from hydrogen, boron, carbon and lead can be utilized to unfold the incident neutron energy distribution as an under-determined deconvolution problem. Such an under-determined set of equations are solved using the genetic algorithm based Monte Carlo de-convolution code GAMCD. Feasibility of the proposed technique is demonstrated theoretically using the Monte Carlo calculated response matrix and intensities of emitted prompt gammas from the Pb-covered BHDPE–HDPE system in the case of several incident neutron spectra spanning different energy ranges.

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