CUELISA Project

This project aims to cover the need for high-resolution and high-accuracy experimental data for the neutron induced scattering cross sections on the Copper isotopes, in the fast neutron energy range, a very important neutron energy region for applications and not easily predictable by theoretical calculations.

The new measurements for elastic and inelastic neutron scattering on Cu will be performed with the ELISA setup and using the time-of-flight technique at the neutron facility GELINA (JRC-Geel, Belgium). The new setup has been successfully used for the extraction of high-accuracy, high-resolution neutron induced elastic scattering data on nat,56,54Fe and natC, by members of the team, most of them for the first time in literature.

An improvement of the setup is foreseen with the addition of one arm with Lithium-6 glass scintillators for measuring the neutron energy range below 1 MeV.

In the context of this 6-month fast-track project we propose to work on the upgrade of the ELISA spectrometer, by adding new Li-glass detectors, and perform experiments on natC (for the validation of the new system) and on natCu. This project is part of the PhD thesis of Georgia Anna Karakaxi (NTUA) and is included in the Horizon Europe APRENDE project. Furthermore, a proposal for these measurements at ELISA in the context of open access to JRC Research Infrastructures was accepted. Upon the successful completion of this indispensable part of research, a highly enriched 65Cu sample will be measured under the same conditions and the optimized setup.

The main objectives of the proposed project are the following:

1. Testing of the ELISA setup with a new arm of Li-glass detectors.
2. Measurement of the natC(n,el) for the validation of the upgraded setup.
3. Measurement of the natCu(n,el) in the maximum possible energy range.
4. Initialization of raw data analysis.
5. Training of the PhD student in every relevant aspect, experimental procedure and raw data extraction, raw data analysis.