Measurements and Monte Carlo calculations of neutron production cross-sections at 180° for the 140 MeV proton incident reactions on carbon, iron, and gold

The neutron production cross-sections of carbon, iron, and gold targets with 140 MeV protons at 180° were measured at the RCNP cyclotron facility. The time-of-flight technique was used to obtain the neutron energy spectra in the energy range above 1 MeV. The carbon and iron target results were compared with the experimental data from 113 MeV (p,xn) reactions at 150° reported by Meier et al. [7] Our data agreed well with them in spite of different incident energies and angles. Calculations were then performed using different intra-nuclear cascade models (Bertini, ISOBAR, and JQMD) implemented with PHITS code. The results calculated using the ISOBAR and JQMD models roughly agreed with the experimental iron and gold target data, but the Bertini could not reproduce the high-energy neutrons above 10 MeV.