Intense Combined Source of Neutrons and Photons for Interrogation Based on Compact Deuteron RF Accelerator

Interrogation of special nuclear materials can benefit from mobile sources providing significant fluxes of neutrons (108/s at 2.5 MeV, 1010/s at 14.1 MeV) and of photons (>1012/s at 1-3 MeV). We propose a source that satisfies these requirements simultaneously plus also provides, via the reaction 11B(d,n)12C(γ15.1), a significant flux of 15-MeV photons, which are highly penetrating and optimal for inducing photo-fission in actinides. The source is based on a compact (< 5 m) deuteron RF accelerator that delivers an average current of a few mA of deuterons at 3-4 MeV to a boron target. The accelerator consists of a short RFQ followed by efficient inter-digital H-mode structures with permanent-magnet-quadrupole beam focusing [Kurennoy et al. (2012)], which suit perfectly for deuteron acceleration at low energies. Our estimates, based on recent measurements [Taddeucci et al. (2007)], indicate that the required fluxes of both neutrons and photons can be achieved at ∼1 mA of 4-MeV deuterons. The goal of the proposed study is to confirm feasibility of the approach and develop requirements for future full- system implementation.