Modeling of Deuteron Induced Reactions on Molybdenum at Low Energies

TL;DR

This paper models deuteron-induced reactions on molybdenum at low energies, improving nuclear data crucial for fusion applications by analyzing complex reaction mechanisms and validating against experimental data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of deuteron interactions with molybdenum, highlighting the need for improved modeling of breakup and direct reactions in nuclear data libraries.

Findings

Breakup, stripping, and pick-up reactions account for about half of the total cross section.

Validation against experimental data confirms the approach's effectiveness.

Identifies weak points in current models, suggesting areas for improvement.

Abstract

The activities of the EUROfusion consortium on the development of high quality nuclear data for fusion applications include evaluations of deuteron induced reactions and related data libraries for needs of the DEMO fusion power plant and IFMIF-DONES neutron--source nuclear analyses. Molybdenum is one of the major constituents of the reference stainless steels used in critical components of these projects. While the TENDL deuteron data library was the current reference used by EUROfusion, need of its further improvement has already been pointed out. The weak binding energy of the deuteron is responsible for the high complexity of its interaction with nuclei, involving also a variety of reactions initiated by the nucleons following the deuteron breakup. Their analysis completed that of the deuteron interactions with Mo and its stable isotopes, from elastic scattering to pre-equilibrium and compound--nucleus reactions, up to 50 MeV. A particular attention has been paid to the breakup, stripping, and pick-up direct interactions which amount to around half of the deuteron total--reaction cross section. The due account of most experimental data has validated the present approach, highlighted some prevalent features, and emphasized weak points and consequently the need for modeling/evaluation upgrade.