A New Method for Estimating Neutron Reaction Cross Sections Based on Wick's Limit

Wick's limit is an inequality that relates the zero-degree differential elastic scattering cross section to the total cross section. The deviation of Wick's limit from an exact equality is small over a wide range of incident energies and target masses. Under these circumstances we show that Wick's limit can be used to correlate the uncertainties in the two terms of the reaction (nonelastic) cross section expressed as the difference between the total and angle-integrated elastic cross sections. When suitable elastic angular distributions are available, we show that the reaction cross section may be obtained with small errors (typically 1.5-3%). Examples are shown for 208Pb, 54-56Fe, 232Th, and 238U.