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We describe measurements of fission product data at Los Alamos that are important for determining the number of fissions that have occurred when neutrons are incident on plutonium and uranium isotopes. The fission-spectrum measurements were made using a fission chamber designed by the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) in the BIG TEN critical assembly, as part of the Inter-laboratory Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LMFBR) Reaction Rate (ILRR) collaboration. The thermal measurements were made at Los Alamos' Omega West Reactor. A related set of measurements were made of fission-product ratios (so-called R-values) in neutron environments provided by a number of Los Alamos critical assemblies that range from having average energies causing fission of 400–600 keV (BIG TEN and the outer regions of the Flattop-25 assembly) to higher energies (1.4–1.9 MeV) in the Jezebel, and in the central regions of the Flattop-25 and Flattop-Pu, critical assemblies. From these data we determine ratios of fission product yields in different fuel and neutron environments (Q-values) and fission product yields in fission spectrum neutron environments for 99Mo, 95Zr, 137Cs, 140Ba, 141,143Ce, and 147Nd. Modest incident-energy dependence exists for the 147Nd fission product yield; this is discussed in the context of models for fission that include thermal and dynamical effects. The fission product data agree with measurements by Maeck and other authors using mass-spectrometry methods, and with the ILRR collaboration results that used gamma spectroscopy for quantifying fission products. We note that the measurements also contradict earlier 1950s historical Los Alamos estimates by ∼5–7%, most likely owing to self-shielding corrections not made in the early thermal measurements. Our experimental results provide a confirmation of the England-Rider ENDF/B-VI evaluated fission-spectrum fission product yields that were carried over to the ENDF/B-VII.0 library, except for 99Mo where the present results are about 4%-relative higher for neutrons incident on 239Pu and 235U. Additionally, our results illustrate the importance of representing the incident energy dependence of fission product yields over the fast neutron energy range for high-accuracy work, for example the 147Nd from neutron reactions on plutonium. An upgrade to the ENDF library, for ENDF/B-VII.1, based on these and other data, is described in a companion paper to this work. |
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