Effective temperatures and scattering cross sections in water mixtures determined by Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering

The present work shows a series of results of Deep Inelastic Neutron Scattering (DINS) experiments on light and heavy water mixtures performed at the spectrometer VESUVIO (Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, UK) employing an analysis method based on the information provided by individual detectors in forward and backward scattering positions. We investigated the effective temperatures of the different atoms composing the samples, a magnitude of considerable interest for Nuclear Engineering. The peak intensities and their relation with the bound-atom cross sections is analyzed, showing a good agreement with tabulated values which supports the use of this technique as non-destructive mass spectrometry. Previous results in the determination of scattering cross sections by this technique (known in the literature) that were at variance with the present findings are commented.