Inelastic Scattering of 14MeV Neutrons by Medium Weight Nuclei

Continuous spectra of neutrons inelastically scattered from Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ge and As have been measured at an incident energy of 14 MeV with good statistics. Time-of-flight technique was used. In the analyses there were used three sets of inverse-reaction cross section σ_i: (1) calculated with Perey-Buck potential, (2) with Bjorklund-Fernbach potential and (3) cross section assumed to be constant. The inverse-reaction cross section does not affect appreciably the values of nuclear temperature or nuclear level density parameter for these nuclei except Ti, V and Cr. The nuclear temperature was found to be nearly constant in the mass number region of 48–75. The level density parameter as a function of mass number follows the general trend suggested by Newton. Newton's coefficient is found to be 0.092, in agreement with values obtained in other experiments. The total inelastic scattering cross sections are derived.