Formation of bound dineutrons in the 175Lu (n, 2n) 174 gLu nuclear reaction and its cross-section

The dineutron as a bound chargeless nucleus of two identical nucleons has been attracting attention for many decades. In addition to the study of the formation of a bound dineutron in the outgoing channel of specific nuclear reactions, cross-section estimates have been gaining interest as research targets. We used a traditional neutron activation technique to irradiate Lu samples followed by measurements of the induced activity with HPGe spectrometer in order to detect gamma-peaks of the 175 Lu ( n , 2 n ) 174 g Lu reaction product when this reaction channel is not open for incident neutron energies. Based on two measurements of the instrumental gamma-ray spectra of Lu samples we reliably identified the presence of the 174 g Lu isotope in the outgoing channel of the 175 Lu ( n , 2 n ) 174 g Lu nuclear reaction. Also, the cross-section for this nuclear reaction was obtained and to be equal 33 . 5 − 6.7 + 7.0 mb. For the first time, the dineutron as a nuclearreaction product was indirectly detected via statistically significant observation of the induced activity of 174 g Lu with a corresponding cross-section estimate.