Yield calculation for delayed gamma-ray neutron activation analysis

Predicting the analysis sensitivities of interested elements is one of the major concerns in various applications of neutron activation analysis (NAA). As the specific gamma-ray yield after the neutron irradiation could be affected by the irradiating neutrons' spectrum, which can hardly be constant for NAA applications of different interested elements (and matrix elements) that need their own customized optimal neutron moderators, a calculator for predicting the analysis sensitivities of NAA should be able to consider all the contributions of neutrons with different energies. In this study, a MATLAB-based code, named as CYANUS (the Calculator for Yield Analysis of NeUtron Activation) is developed to quantitatively evaluate the specific yields of delayed gamma-rays released from the neutron irradiated objects. The comparison between the results calculated by CYANUS and those from other currently available online programs demonstrates that this work shows the smallest relative error with respect to the experimentally measured results, indicating that CYANUS is promising to provide an accurate evaluation of the specific gamma-ray yields when the object is irradiated by customized neutron spectrum in the NAA applications.

Automated summary

A MATLAB-based code named CYANUS is developed to quantitatively evaluate the specific yields of delayed gamma-rays released from neutron irradiated objects in neutron activation analysis (NAA) applications. The comparison with other online programs shows that CYANUS provides the most accurate evaluation of specific gamma-ray yields, indicating its promising potential in NAA applications.