Response Measurement of a Bonner Sphere Spectrometer for High-Energy Neutrons

Response measurements of a Bonner sphere spectrometer (BSS) were performed for high-energy neutrons up to 400 MeV in quasi-monoenergetic neutron fields at the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP), Osaka University. The quasi-monoenergetic neutron field was generated by a 7 Li(p,n) reaction with the resulting spectra consisting of a monoenergetic high-energy peak followed by an unwanted continuum tail down to the low-energy region. Two-angle differential measurements for a variety of Bonner spheres were performed to obtain monoenergetic responses by subtracting the tail contributions. Discussions were made on data analysis for tail subtraction. While each Bonner sphere had a different energy response, good agreements were seen in the responses between the MCNPX calculations and the measurements with a suitable subtraction. Response calculations were also made for the whole spectra obtained by unfolding the measured BSS data, with results that reproduce well the measured responses.