Excitation functions of neutron-induced threshold reactions in Au, Bi, Ta measured using 30–94 MeV quasi mono-energetic neutron sources

Activation measurements of neutron-induced threshold reactions were studied employing 7Li(p,n) quasi mono-energetic neutron sources in the neutron energy range of 30–94 MeV, where scarce experimental and evaluated data exist. A novel iterative neutron background subtraction approach is presented for the first time and its successful application is demonstrated on the analysis of the excitation functions of (n,xn) reactions in Au, Bi and Ta with x up to 10. Some of them are on the High Priority Nuclear Data Request List (HPRL). A comprehensive comparison of the measured data with theoretical predictions using the TALYS code is presented. While the calculated cross-sections agree with the measurements for lower-threshold reactions, severe discrepancies are observed for higher (n,xn) reactions for any of the TALYS model parameters.