Measurement and validation of the cross section in the FLUKA code for the production of ^63Zn and ^65Zn in Cu targets for low-energy proton accelerators

Induced radioactivity is one of the essential problems in the radiation protection field of proton accelerators. Research on the induced radioactivity of low-energy proton accelerators is highly limited. Given such context, this study investigates the cross section of ^63Cu （p, n） ^63Zn and ^65Cu （p, n） ^65Zn in Cu targets at 11 MeV proton accelerators through an activation experiment. The uncertainties of the results are analyzed in detail. Results show that the cross section of the reaction of ^65Cu （p, n） ^65Zn in the experiment is only 1.36% lower than that of the FLUKA simulation, whereas the reaction of ^63Cu （p, n） ^63Zn in the experiment is 25.4% higher than that of the FLUKA simulation. Given that the benchmark for the FLUKA code of low-energy proton accelerators is very limited, this study provides a reference in this field.