Improvements of Intra-Nuclear Cascade models stimulated by recent spallation data.

In high-energy transport codes used to design Accelerator Driven Systems or spallation neutron sources, elementary interactions are computed through nuclear physics models. Among these, Intra-Nuclear Cascade models play a major role since the excitation energy at the end of the INC stage determines the number of evaporated particles. Therefore, in simulation of spallation targets, INC influences the total number of emitted neutrons and the isotopic distribution of produced nuclei. Recent data regarding the production of neutrons and residual nuclei in proton induced reactions make it possible to now test the reliability of INC models and improve them. A new version (INCL4) of the Lie`ge INC model will be presented. © 2002 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]