Cross sections for the production of helium, neon and argon isotopes by proton-induced reactions on iron and nickel

We measured integral thin target cross sections for the proton-induced production of 3He, 4He, 21Ne, 22Ne, 36Ar and 38Ar from Fe and Ni from the respective reaction thresholds up to 1.6 GeV. The production of noble gas isotopes, especially 4He, from Fe and Ni is of special importance for design studies of accelerator driven systems and/or energy amplifier, because Fe is the main structural material in almost every design study. Furthermore, the cross sections are needed to establish the first physical model calculations for the production of cosmogenic nuclides in iron meteorites. As a result of our new measurements there now exist for both target elements a complete and consistent database for the production of noble gas isotopes. The experimental data are compared to results from the theoretical nuclear model codes INCL4/ABLA and TALYS. This comparison clearly demonstrates again that experimental data are still needed because the predictive power of nuclear model codes, though permanently improving, does still not allow reliably predicting the cross sections needed for most applications and irradiation experiments remain indispensable.