Research and development is being completed for an ultracold neutron (UCN) source to be installed at the PULSTAR reactor on the campus of North Carolina State University. The objective is to establish a university-based UCN facility with sufficient UCN intensity to allow world-class fundamental and applied research with UCN. To maximize the UCN yield, a solid ortho-D2 converter will be implemen...

[1] Interactions of galactic cosmic rays and solar energetic particles with nuclei in the Earth’s atmosphere produce secondary neutrons. Secondary neutrons with energies greater than a few MeV interact with atmospheric nuclei and produce gamma ray lines. The relative intensities of these lines depend on the shape of the neutron energy spectrum, and so their measurement with satellite detectors ...

Advanced methods of boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) use an epithermal neutron beam in conjunction with tumor-targeting boron compounds for irradiation of glioblastomas and metastatic melanomas. A common neutron-producing reaction considered for accelerator-based BNCT is 7Li(p,n)7Be, whose cross section increases very rapidly within several tens of keV of the reaction threshold at 1.88 MeV....

We have identified three possible ways in which future XMM-Newton observations can provide significant constraints on the equation of state of neutron stars. First, using a long observation of the neutron star X-ray transient Cen X–4 in quiescence one can use the RGS spectrum to constrain the interstellar extinction to the source. This removes this parameter from the X-ray spectral fitting of t...

Advanced neutron interrogation systems for screening sea-land cargo containers for shielded special nuclear materials (SNM) require a high-yield neutron source to achieve the desired detection probability, false alarm rate, and throughput. The design of an accelerator-driven neutron source is described that utilizes the D(d,n)He reaction to produce a forward directed beam of up to 8.5 MeV neutr...

The Legnaro National Laboratories (LNL) of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) are developing a neutron source within the SPES-BNCT project. An accelerator-based, high-flux thermal neutron beam facility is planned for the experimental treatment of skin melanoma. Neutrons are produced via the Be(p,n) reaction by bombarding a 1 mm thick beryllium target with 5 MeV protons gen...

Background: In high-intensity, mixed and pulsed neutron fields the use of spectrometers or area monitors with active detectors is useless in these conditions neutron measuring devices must have a passive detector. Here a passive neutron area monitor with CR39 track detector was designed and the response was calculated. Materials and Methods: The response of a passive neutron area monitor with C...

background: prompt gamma neutron activation analysis (pgnaa) is known as a non-invasive technique capable of measuring elemental concentration in voluminous samples in a short period of time. also it is a valuable diagnostic tool for total body elemental measurements. 252cf and 241am-be sources which are usually used in this method, generate not only neutrons, but also emit high-energy and unwa...

Super Ultra-Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SUSANS) studies over wave vector transfers of 10(-4) nm(-1) to 10(-3) nm(-1) afford information on micrometer-size agglomerates in samples. Using a right-angled magnetic air prism, we have achieved a separation of ≈10 arcsec between ≈2 arcsec wide up- and down-spin peaks of 0.54 nm neutrons. The SUSANS instrument has thus been equipped with the polari...

The potential of the Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) for industrial applications in many fields is well recognized, although yet to be realized in practice. Particularly attractive is the possibility of its use as inexpensive industrial source of nuclear reactions for diverse high value applications such as fast pulsed neutron radiography of hydrogenous materials, non-intrusive neutron interrogation o...