Experimental validation of cold neutron source performance with mesitylene moderator installed at RANS

The RANS (RIKEN Accelerator driven Neutron Source), one of compact accelerator neutron sources (CANS), tries to expand its performance by installing a cold neutron which may provide new opportunities in many applications. RANS is a low power CANS with a proton beam of 7 MeV and 100 mu A at maximum. A moderator system was constructed based on results of optimization design study with mesitylene. Recently, we have done performance tests aiming at showing characteristics as cold neutron source. Cryogenic mesitylene moderator was installed on a plug with a new target moderator reflector configuration of RANS. Experiment using a gas electron multiplier (GEM) detector was carried out to measure neutron spectra of the cold moderator. This paper describes performance of the cold moderator in terms of 1) Cold neutron gain of optimization design with respect to a polyethylene moderator, 2) Temperature dependency of cold neutron spectrum flux regarding scattering kernel (SK), and 3) comparison between experiment and calculation. A note is given for comparison between calculations with different SKs available. Also, two-dimensional imaging of cold and thermal neutron spectrum flux on the viewed surface is shown with a pinhole slit configuration.

Automated summary

Researchers aim to enhance the performance of RANS by installing a cold neutron source, which may bring new opportunities for various applications. They conducted experiments using cryogenic mesitylene as the moderator to measure the neutron spectra, and evaluated the performance of the cold moderator.