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Going Nuclear: Notes from the officially unofficial book tour
I work in the analytical labs at one of Europe’s oldest and largest nuclear sites: Sellafield, in northwestern England. I spend my days at the fume hood front, pipette in one hand and radiation probe in the other (and dosimeter pinned to my chest, of course). Outside the lab, I have a second job: I moonlight as a writer and public speaker. My new popular science book—Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World—came out last summer, and it feels like my life has been running at full power ever since.
S. Hlavá, L. Dostál, I. Turzo, A. Pavlik, H. Vonach
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 125 | Number 2 | February 1997 | Pages 196-204
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE97-A24266
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The gamma radiation from the interaction of 14.6-MeV neutrons with aluminum has been investigated by high-resolution germanium-detector gamma-ray spectroscopy. Cross sections for gamma lines from the 27Al(n,n’γ), (n,pγ), and (n,npγ) reactions have been measured at an emission angle of 125 deg. The results are compared with previous measurements and with predictions based on the statistical theory of nuclear reactions (including direct and precompound contributions). The current results are within the range of values reported in the widely discrepant previous measurements and thus allow the resolution of these discrepancies. The relative intensities of the gamma lines analyzed in this work are in good agreement with the results of a white neutron source measurement performed by two of the authors at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The measured gamma-ray production cross sections were compared with the results of nuclear model calculations using the GNASH code. The agreement with the calculated cross sections is unsatisfactory. The results of the statistical calculations are on average ∼20% below the measured cross sections, and there are also some discrepancies between the calculated and measured relative intensities for the different lines from the (n,n’γ) reaction.