Measurement of neutron capture cross section of the ¹⁶⁵ Ho(n,γ) ¹⁶⁶ Ho reaction at 0.0372 eV energy

Abstract The neutron capture cross section of the 165 Ho(n,γ) 166 Ho reaction at an incident neutron energy of 0.0372 eV was accurately measured using the horizontal beam channel of the Neutron Diffraction Facility (NDF) at the Es-Salam nuclear research reactor. The Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) technique via the 197 Au(n,γ) 198 Au reference reaction was adopted. A hyper pure germanium detector was able to detect the gamma ray spectra of the holmium oxide target powder and two thin gold foils. A resulting value of σ ≈ (52.71 ± 2.7) b was determined for the thermal neutron cross section after correction for gamma attenuation effects. There are, so far as we know, no measured cross sections reported in the libraries of neutron databases for such an energy, so the value measured in this work cannot be compared with tabulated data for the 0.0372 ± 0.0014 eV energy. The experimental value was then extrapolated to 0.0253 eV energy, assuming 1/ ν dependence in the thermal energy region, and was compared with experimental values that were integrally measured and evaluated in the literature.