New perspectives for neutron capture measurements in the upgraded CERN-n_TOF Facility

TL;DR

The paper discusses the 2021 upgrade of the CERN-n_TOF facility, highlighting improvements in neutron capture measurement capabilities, energy resolution, and detector R&D to enhance experimental accuracy and efficiency.

Contribution

It presents the first results post-upgrade, detailing the enhanced energy resolution and discusses recent detector development efforts for improved measurements.

Findings

Energy resolution improved for the 20 m vertical beam-line.

Maintained high resolution in the long beamline n_TOF-EAR1.

First (n,γ) measurement results from the upgraded facility.

Abstract

The n_TOF facility has just undergone in 2021 a major upgrade with the installation of its third generation spallation target that has been designed to optimize the performance of the two n_TOF time-of-flight lines. This contribution describes the key features and limitations for capture measurements in the two beam lines prior to the target upgrade and presents first results of (n,$\gamma$) measurements carried out as part of the commissioning of the upgraded facility. In particular, the energy resolution, a key factor for both increasing the signal-to-background ratio and obtaining accurate resonance parameters, has been clearly improved for the 20 m long vertical beam-line with the new target design while keeping the remarkably high resolution of the long beamline n_TOF-EAR1. The improvements in the n_TOF neutron beam-lines need to be accompanied by improvements in the instrumentation. A review is given on recent detector R&D projects aimed at tackling the existing challenges and further improving the capabilities of this facility.