MENDL2 and IEAF-2001 Nuclide Production Yields Databases Verification at Intermediate Energies.

The work presents results of computer simulation of two experiments whose aim was measuring the threshold activation reaction rates in 12C, 19F, 27Al, 59Co, 63Cu, 65Cu, 64Zn, 93Nb, 115In, 169Tm, 181Ta, 197Au, and 209Bi thin samples placed inside and outside a 0.8-GeV proton-irradiated 4-cm thick W target and a 92-cm thick W-Na composite target of 15-cm diameter both. In total, more than 1000 values of activation reaction were determined in both experiments. The measured reaction rates were compared with the rates simulated by the LAHET code with the use of two nuclear databases for the respective excitation functions, namely, MENDL2/2P for neutron/proton cross sections up to 100 MeV, and the recently developed IEAF-2001 that provides neutron cross sections up to 150MeV. Here, we present a comparison of the simulation-to-experiment agreement obtained using MENDL2 and IEAF-2001. The agreement between simulation and experiment has been found general satisfactory for both of the databases. High-energy threshold excitation functions to be used in activation-based unfolding of neutron spectra inside Accelerator Driven Systems (ADS), particularly with Na-cooled W targets, can be inferred from our results. © 2005 American Institute of Physics [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]